At 6:30 p.m. on the evening of
April 20, 1889, he was born in the
small Austrian village of Braunau Am Inn just across the border from German
Bavaria.

Adolf Hitler would one day lead a movement
that placed supreme importance on a person's family tree even making it
a matter of life and death. However, his own family tree was quite mixed
up and would be a lifelong source of embarrassment and concern to him.

His father, Alois, was born in 1837.
He was the illegitimate son of Maria Anna Schicklgruber and her unknown
mate, which may have been someone from the neighborhood or a poor millworker
named Johann Georg Hiedler. It is also remotely possible Adolf Hitler's
grandfather was Jewish.

Maria Schicklgruber was said to have
been employed as a cook in the household of a wealthy Jewish family named
Frankenberger. There is some speculation their 19 year old son got her pregnant
and regularly sent her money after the birth of Alois.

Adolf Hitler would never know for sure
just who his grandfather was.

He did know that when his father Alois
was about five years old, Maria Schicklgruber married Johann Georg Hiedler.
The marriage lasted five years until her death of natural causes, at which
time Alois went to live on a small farm with his uncle.

At age thirteen, young Alois had enough
of farm life and set out for the city of Vienna to make something of himself.
He worked as a shoemaker's apprentice then later enlisted in the Austrian
civil service, becoming a junior customs official. He worked hard as a civil
servant and eventually became a supervisor. By 1875 he achieved the rank
of Senior Assistant Inspector, a big accomplishment for the former poor
farm boy with little formal education.

At this time an event occurred that
would have big implications for the future.

Alois had always used the last name
of his mother, Schicklgruber, and thus was always called Alois Schicklgruber.
He made no attempt to hide the fact he was illegitimate since it was commonin rural Austria.

But after his success in the civil service,
his proud uncle from the small farm convinced him to change his last name
to match his own, Hiedler, and continue the family name. However, when it
came time to write the name down in the record book it was spelled as Hitler.

And so in 1876 at age 39, Alois Schicklgruber
became Alois Hitler. This is important because it is hard to imagine tens
of thousands of Germans shouting "Heil Schicklgruber!"
instead of "Heil Hitler!"

In 1885, after numerous affairs and
two other marriages ended, the widowed Alois Hitler, 48, married the pregnant
Klara Pölzl, 24, the granddaughter of uncle Hiedler. Technically, because
of the name change, she was his own niece and so he had to get special permission
from the Catholic church.

The children from his previous marriage,
Alois Hitler, Jr. and Angela, attended the wedding and lived with them afterwards.
Klara Pölzl eventually gave birth to two boys and a girl, all of whom
died. On April 20, 1889, her fourth child, Adolf was born healthy and was
baptized a Roman Catholic. Hitler's father was now 52 years old.

Throughout his early days, young Adolf's
mother feared losing him as well and lavished much care and affection on
him. His father was busy working most of the time and also spent a lot of
time on his main hobby, keeping bees.

Baby Adolf had the nickname, Adi. When
he was almost five, in 1893, his mother gave birth to a brother, Edmund.
In 1896 came a sister, Paula.

In May of 1895 at age six, young Adolf
Hitler entered first grade in the public school in the village of Fischlham,
near Linz Austria.

Hitler's Boyhood

In 1895, at age six, two important events
happened in the life of young Adolf Hitler. First, the unrestrained, carefree
days he had enjoyed up to now came to an end as he entered primary school.
Secondly, his father retired on a pension from the Austrian civil service.

This meant a double dose of supervision,
discipline and regimentation under the watchful eyes of teachers at school
and his strict father at home. His father, now 58, had spent most of his
life working his way up through the civil service ranks. He was used to
giving orders and having them obeyed and also expected this from his children.
The Hitler family lived on a small farm outside of Linz, Austria. The children
had farm chores to perform along with their school work.

Hitler's mother was now preoccupied
with caring for her new son, Edmund. In 1896 she gave birth to a girl, Paula.
The Hitler household now consisted of Adolf, little brother Edmund, little
sister Paula, older half brother Alois Jr., older half sister Angela and
two parents who were home all the time. It was a crowded, noisy little farm
house that seems to have gotten on the nerves on Hitler's father who found
retirement after 40 years of work to be difficult.

The oldest boy, Alois Jr., 13, bore
the brunt of his father's discontent, including harsh words and occasional
beatings. A year later, at age 14, young Alois had enough of this treatment
and ran away from home, never to see his father again. This put young Adolf,
age 7, next in line for the same treatment.

Also at this time, the family moved
off the farm to the town of Lambach, Austria, halfway between Linz and Salzburg.
This was the first of several moves the family would make in the restless
retirement of Hitler's father.

For young Adolf, the move to Lambach
meant an end to farm chores and more time to play. There was an old Catholic
Benedictine monastery in the town. The ancient monastery was decorated with
carved stones and woodwork that included several swastikas. Adolf attended
school there and saw them every day. They had been put there in the 1800's
by the ruling Abbot as a pun or play on words. His name essentially sounded
like the German word for swastika, Hakenkreuz.

Young Hitler did well in the monastery
school and also took part in the boys' choir. He was said to have had a
fine singing voice. Years later Hitler would say the solemn pageantry of
the high mass and other Catholic ceremonies was quite intoxicating and left
a very deep impression.

As a young boy he idolized the priests
and for two years seriously considered becoming a priest himself. He especially
admired the Abbot in charge, who ruled his black-robbed monks with supreme
authority. At home Hitler sometimes played priest and even included long
sermons.

At age nine, he got into schoolboy mischief.
He was caught smoking a cigarette by one of the priests, but was forgiven
and not punished.

His favorite game to play outside was
cowboys and Indians. Tales of the American West were very popular among
boys in Austria and Germany. Books by James Fenimore Cooper and especially
German writer Karl May were eagerly read and re-enacted.

May, who had never been to America,
invented a hero named Old Shatterhand, a white man who always won his battles
with Native Americans, defeating his enemies through sheer will power and
bravery. Young Hitler read and reread every one of May's books about Old
Shatterhand, totaling more than 70 novels. He continued to read them even
as Führer. During the German attack on the Soviet Union he sometimes
referred to the Russians as Redskins and ordered his officers to carry May's
books about fighting Indians.

In describing his boyhood, Hitler later
said of himself that he was an argumentative little ring leader who liked
to stay outside and hang around with 'husky' boys. His half brother Alois
later described him as quick to anger and spoiled by his indulgent mother.

In 1898, the Hitler family moved once
again, to the village of Leonding, close to Linz. They settled into a small
house with a garden next to a cemetery. This meant another change of schools
for Adolf.

He found school easy and got good grades
with little effort. He also discovered he had considerable talent for drawing,
especially sketching buildings. He had the ability to look at a building,
memorize the architectural details, and accurately reproduce it on paper,
entirely from memory.

One day, young Hitler went rummaging
through his father's book collection and came across several of a military
nature, including a picture book on the War of 1870 - 1871 between the Germans
and the French. By Hitler's own account, this book became an obsession.
He read it over and over, becoming convinced it had been a glorious event.

"It was not long before the great historic
struggle had become my greatest spiritual experience. From then on, I became
more and more enthusiastic about everything that was in any was connected
with war or, for that matter, with soldering." - Hitler stated in his book
Mein Kampf.

Cowboys and Indians gave way to battle
re-enactments, especially after the Boer War broke out in Africa. Hitler,
now eleven years old, took the side of the Boers against the English and
never tired of playing war. Sometimes, he even wore out the boys he was
playing with and then simply went and found other boys to continue.

But now at home, tragedy struck. Adolf's
little brother Edmund, age 6, died of measles. Adolf, the boy who loved
warplay and its 'pretend' death now had to confront genuine death for the
first time. It seems to have shaken him badly.

To make matters worse, the little boy
was buried in the cemetery next to their house. From his bedroom window,
Adolf could see the cemetery.

Years later, neighbors recalled that
young Adolf was sometimes seen at night sitting on the wall of the cemetery
gazing up at the stars.

And there were now more problems for
Adolf. His grade school years were coming to an end and he had to choose
which type of secondary school to attend, classical or technical. By now,
young Hitler had dreams of one day becoming an artist. He wanted to go to
the classical school. But his father wanted him to follow in his footsteps
and become a civil servant and sent him to the technical high school in
the city of Linz, in September, 1900.

Hitler, the country boy, was lost in
the city and its big school. City kids also looked down on country kids
who went to the school. He was very lonely and extremely unhappy. He did
quite poorly his first year, getting kept back.

He would later claim he wanted to show
his father he was unsuited for technical education with its emphasis on
mathematics and science and thus should have been allowed to become an artist.

"I thought that once my father saw
what little progress I was making at the (technical school) he would let
me devote myself to the happiness I dreamed of."
- Hitler explained in Mein Kampf.

There were frequent arguments at home
between young Hitler and his father over his career choice. To the traditional
minded, authoritarian father, the idea of his son becoming an artist seemed
utterly ridiculous.

But in the grand scheme of things, as
young Adolf saw it, the idea of a career spent sitting in an office all
day long doing the boring paper work of a civil servant was utterly horrible.
The dream of becoming an artist seemed to be the answer to all his present
day problems.

But his stubborn father refused to listen.
And so a bitter struggle began between father and son.

Hitler began his second year at the
high school as the oldest boy in his class since he had been kept back.
This gave him the advantage over the other boys. Once again he became a
little ringleader and even led the boys in afterschool games of cowboys
and Indians, becoming Old Shatterhand. He managed to get better grades in
his second year, but still failed mathematics.

Another interest of great importance
surfaced at this time, German nationalism.

The area of Austria where Hitler grew
up is close to the German border. Many Austrians along the border considered
themselves to be German-Austrians. Although they were subjects of the Austrian
Hapsburg Monarchy and its multicultural empire, they expressed loyalty to
the German Imperial House of Hohenzollern and its Kaiser.

In defiance of the Austrian Monarchy,
Adolf Hitler and his young friends liked to use the German greeting, "Heil,"
and sing the German anthem "Deutschland Uber Alles," instead of the
Austrian Imperial anthem.

Hitler's father had worked as an Austrian
Imperial customs agent and continually expressed loyalty to the Hapsburg
Monarchy, perhaps unknowingly encouraging his rebellious young son to give
his loyalty to the German Kaiser.

There was also a history teacher at
school, Dr. Leopold Pötsch who touched Hitler's imagination with exciting
tales of the glory of German figures such as Bismark and Frederick The Great.
For young Hitler, German Nationalism quickly became an obsession.

Adding to all this, was another new
interest, the operas of German composer Richard Wagner. Hitler saw his first
opera at age twelve and was immediately captivated by its Germanic music,
pagan myths, tales of ancient Kings and Knights and their glorious struggles
against hated enemies.

But now, for young Hitler, the struggle
with his father was about to come to a sudden end. In January, 1903, Hitler's
father died suddenly of a lung hemorrhage, leaving his thirteen year old
son as head of the Hitler household.

Hitler's Father Dies

In the town of Leonding, Austria, on
the bitterly cold morning of Saturday, January 3, 1903, Alois Hitler, 65,
went out for a walk, stopping at a favorite inn where he sat down and asked
for a glass of wine. He collapsed before the wine was brought to him and
died within minutes from a lung hemorrhage. It was not the first one he
had suffered.

Young Adolf, now 13, broke down and
cried when he saw his father's body laid out. His father's funeral Mass
in the small church at Leonding was well attended. A newspaper in nearby
Linz published an obituary that included the following sentence - "The harsh
words that sometimes fell from his lips could not belie the warm heart that
beat under the rough exterior."

For Adolf, there would be no more harsh
words and no more arguing with his father, especially over his career choice.
Hitler's father had insisted Adolf become a civil servant like himself.
Young Hitler, however, had dreams of becoming a great artist. Now Hitler
was free from the stern words and domineering authority of his father. In
fact, young Adolf was now the male head of the household, a position of
some importance in those days.

Financially, his father had left the
Hitler family fairly well provided for. Hitler's mother received half of
her husband's monthly pension, plus death benefits. Adolf received a small
amount each month, plus a small inheritance. The family also owned a house
in Leonding which had been paid for mostly in cash.

For convenience, young Hitler went to
live at a boys' boarding house in Linz where he was attending the technical
high school. This saved him the long daily commute from Leonding. On weekends,
he went back home to his mother.

Hitler was remembered by the woman who
ran the boarding house as a nervous, awkward boy, who spent most of his
time reading and drawing. Although Hitler loved to read, he was a lazy and
uncooperative student in school.

In Autumn 1903, when he returned to
school after summer vacation, things got worse. Along with his poor grades
in mathematics and French, Hitler behaved badly, knowing he was likely to
fail. With no threat of discipline at home and disinterest shown by his
school teachers, Hitler performed pranks and practical jokes aimed at the
teachers he now disliked so much.

Among Hitler's antics - giving contrary,
insulting, argumentative answers to questions which upset the teacher and
delighted the other boys who sometimes applauded him. With those boys, he
also released cockroaches in the classroom, rearranged the furniture, and
organized confusion in the classroom by doing the opposite of what the teacher
said.

Years later, even as Führer, Hitler
liked to dwell on his schoolboy pranks and would recall them in detail to
his top generals in the midst of waging a world war.

It was only Hitler's history teacher,
Dr. Leopold Pötsch and his tales of heroic Germans from bygone eras
who kept his interest and earned his respect. By his early teens, Hitler
already had a keen interest in German nationalism along with an big interest
in art and architecture.

Young Hitler put all his hopes in the
dream of becoming a great artist, especially as his prospects at the high
school grew dimmer. Some of the teachers were also anxious to see Hitler
thrown out of the school because of the trouble he caused.

One teacher later recalled young Hitler
as one who - "... reacted with illconcealed
hostility to advice or reproof; at the same time, he demanded of his fellow
pupils their unqualified subservience, fancying himself in the role of leader,
at the same time indulging in many a less innocuous prank of a kind not
uncommon among immature youths."

In May of 1904, at age 15, Adolf Hitler
received the Catholic Sacrament of Confirmation in the Linz cathedral. As
a young boy he once entertained the idea of becoming a priest. But by the
time he was confirmed he was bored and uninterested in his faith and hardly
bothered to make the appropriate responses during the religious ceremony.

Shortly after this, Hitler left the
high school at Linz. He had been given a passing mark in French on a make-up
exam on the condition that he not return to the school. In September, 1904,
he entered another high school, at Steyr, a small town 25 miles from Linz.
He lived in a boarding house there, sharing a room with another boy. They
sometimes amused themselves by shooting rats.

Hitler got terrible marks his first
semester at the new school, failing math, German, French, and even got a
poor grade for handwriting. He improved during his second semester and was
told he might even graduate if he first took a special make-up exam in the
fall. During the summer, however, Hitler suffered from a bleeding lung ailment,
an inherited medical problem.

He regained his health and passed the
exam in September 1905 and celebrated with fellow students by getting drunk
and wound up the next morning lying on the side of the road, awakened by
a milkwoman. After that experience he swore off alcohol and never drank
again.

But Hitler could not bring himself to
take the final exam for his diploma. Using poor health as his excuse, he
left school at age sixteen never to return. From now on he would be self
taught, continuing his heavy reading habits and interpreting what he read
on his own, living in his own dreamy reality and creating his own sense
of truth.

Hitler Fails Art Exam

After dropping out of high school in
1905, at age sixteen, Adolf Hitler spent the next few years in brooding
idleness. His indulgent mother patiently urged him to learn a trade or get
a job. But to young Hitler, the idea of daily work with its necessary submission
to authority was revolting.

With his father now dead, there was
no one who could tell young Adolf Hitler what to do, so he did exactly as
he pleased. He spent his time wandering around the city of Linz, Austria,
visiting museums, attending the opera, and sitting by the Danube River dreaming
of becoming a great artist.

Hitler liked to sleep late, then go
out in the afternoon often dressed like a young gentleman of leisure and
even carried a fancy little ivory cane. When he returned home, he would
stay up well past midnight reading and drawing.

He would later describe these teenage
years free from responsibility as the happiest time of his life.

His only friend was with another young
dreamer named August Kubizek, who wanted to be a great musician. They met
at the opera in Linz. Kubizek found Hitler fascinating and a friendship
quickly developed. Kubizek turned out to be a patient listener. He was a
good audience for Hitler, who often rambled for hours about his hopes and
dreams. Sometimes Hitler even gave speeches complete with wild hand gestures
to his audience of one.

Kubizek later described Hitler's personality
as "violent and high strung."Hitler would only tolerate approval from his friend
and could not stand to be corrected, a personality trait he had shown in
high school and as a younger boy as well.

Young Hitler did not have a girlfriend.
But he did have an obsessive interest in a young blond named Stephanie.
He would stare at her as she walked by and sometimes followed her. He wrote
her many love poems. But he never delivered the poems or worked up the nerve
to introduce himself, preferring to keep her in his fantasies. He told his
friend Kubizek he was able to communicate with her by intuition and that
she was even aware of his thoughts and had great admiration for him. He
was also deeply jealous of any attention she showed other young men.

In reality, she had no idea Hitler had
any interest in her. Years later, when told of the interest of her now famous
secret admirer, she expressed complete surprise, although she remembered
getting one weird unsigned letter.

Hitler's view of the world, also based
in fantasy, began to significantly take shape. He borrowed large numbers
of books from the library on German history and Nordic mythology. He was
also deeply inspired by the opera works of Richard Wagner and their pagan,
mythical tales of struggle against hated enemies. His friend Kubizek recalled
that after seeing Wagner's opera 'Rienzi,' Hitler behaved as if possessed.
Hitler led his friend atop a steep hill where he spoke in a strange voice
of a great mission in which he would lead the people to freedom, similar
to the plot in the opera he had just seen.

By now Hitler also had strong pride
in the German race and all things German along with a strong dislike of
the Hapsburg Monarchy and the non-Germanic races in the multicultural Austro-Hungarian
empire which had ruled Austria and surrounding countries for centuries.

In the Spring of 1906, at age seventeen,
Hitler took his first trip to Vienna, capital city of the empire and one
of the world's most important centers of art, music and old-world European
culture. With money in his pocket provided by his mother, he went there
intending to see operas and study the famous picture gallery in the Court
Museum. Instead, he found himself enthralled by the city's magnificent architecture.

By now Hitler had developed a big interest
in architecture. He could draw detailed pictures from memory of a building
he had seen only once. He also liked to ponder how to improve existing buildings,
making them grander, and streamline city layouts. In Vienna he stood for
hours gazing at grand buildings such as the opera house and the Parliament
building, and looking at Ring Boulevard.

As a young boy he had shown natural
talent for drawing. His gift for drawing had also been recognized by his
high school instructors. But things had gone poorly for him in high school.
He was a lazy and uncooperative student, who essentially flunked out. To
escape the reality of that failure and avoid the dreaded reality of a workaday
existence, Hitler put all his hope in the dream of achieving greatness as
an artist.

He decided to attend the prestigious
Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. In October, 1907, at age eighteen, he withdrew
his inheritance money from the bank and went to live and study in Vienna.
Hitler's mother was by now suffering from breast cancer and had been unsuccessfully
operated on in January. But Hitler's driving ambition to be a great artist
overcame his reluctance to leave her.

He took the two day entrance exam for
the academy's school of painting.

Confident and self assured, he awaited
the result, quite sure he would get in. But failure struck him like a bolt
of lightning. His test drawings were judged unsatisfactory and he was not
admitted. Hitler was badly shaken by this rejection. He went back to the
academy to get an explanation and was told his drawings showed a lack of
talent for artistic painting, notably a lack of appreciation of the human
form. He was told, however, that he had some ability for the field of architecture.

But without the required high school
diploma, going to the building school and after that, the academy's architectural
school, seemed doubtful. Hitler resolved to take the painting school entrance
exam again next year. Now, feeling quite depressed, Hitler left Vienna and
returned home where his beloved mother was now dying from cancer, making
matters even worse.

Hitler's Mother Dies

On January 14, 1907, Adolf Hitler's
mother went to see the family doctor about a pain in her chest, so bad it
kept her awake at night. The doctor, Edward Bloch, who was Jewish, examined
her and found she had advanced breast cancer.

Adolf Hitler sobbed when the doctor
told him she was gravely ill and needed immediate surgery. A few days later
Klara Hitler, 46, was operated on and had one of her breasts removed. But
the operation was too late. Her illness, malignant cancer, would slowly
ravage her body. She couldn't make it up the stairs to the family apartment,
so they moved into a first floor apartment in a suburb next to Linz, Austria.

Eighteen year old Adolf had grand ideas
of someday becoming a great artist. Each October, entrance examinations
were held at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Despite his misgivings
about leaving his mother, Hitler's artistic ambitions drove him to withdraw
his inheritance from the bank and move to Vienna to study at the academy.

Problems arose for Hitler when he failed
the academy's entrance exam and his mother's condition took a big turn for
the worse. He left Vienna, feeling quite depressed, and went back home to
his mother and did not tell her he failed the exam.

Hitler consulted Dr. Bloch who recommended
drastic treatment to save his mother's life. The painful, expensive treatment
involved applying dosages of idoform directly onto the ulcerations caused
by the cancer. She was moved into the warm kitchen of the Hitler apartment
where Adolf kept constant watch and even helped out with household chores
such as cooking and washing the floor. The apartment, however, always smelled
of idoform.

She bore the pain well, but Adolf anguished
over every moment of her suffering. Her condition steadily worsened and
as the festive Christmas season approached in December 1907, she was near
death. In the early hours of December 21, amid the glowing lights of the
family's Christmas tree, she died quietly. Adolf was devastated. Dr. Bloch
arrived later that day to sign the death certificate. He later said he had
never seen anyone so overcome with grief as Adolf Hitler at the loss of
his mother.

Klara Hitler was buried on a misty,
foggy December day in the cemetery at Leonding, next to her husband. The
cemetery also contained her son Edward, Adolf's younger brother, who died
from measles at age six.

The next day, Christmas eve, Hitler
and his sisters paid a visit to Dr. Bloch where they settled the medical
bill. The doctor gave the family a break on the charges considering the
many home visits he had made to his patient. Adolf Hitler expressed profound
gratitude to the doctor. "I shall be grateful
to you forever,"Hitler told him.

Now, with both parents gone, Hitler
once again set his sights on Vienna and the art academy. He moved there
in February, 1908. But in that beautiful old city things would go quite
poorly for Hitler. He would eventually wind up sleeping on park benches
and eating at charity soup kitchens. His years of misery in Vienna would
also be a time when he formulated many of his ideas on politics and race
which would have immense consequences in the future.

Hitler is Homeless in Vienna

The beautiful old world city of Vienna,
capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with its magnificent culture that
had seen the likes of Beethoven and Mozart, now had a new resident, a pale,
lanky, sad looking eighteen year old named Adolf Hitler.

Vienna was a city alive with music and
full of diverse people who loved the arts and felt lucky to call the place
home. In February, 1908, Hitler moved there with the goal of attending the
art academy and becoming a great artist.

Sixty years before him, Hitler's father
also came to Vienna seeking opportunity. At that time the Hapsburg Empire
was ruled by Emperor Franz Josef. When Adolf Hitler arrived, it was still
ruled by him, although he was now senile and under the influence of corrupt
ministers. His empire, which had ruled Austria and surrounding countries
for centuries, was now in great decline. Vienna, however, remained a city
of opportunity and attracted a multicultural population from all over the
empire.

Hitler's friend from his hometown of
Linz, August Kubizek, also came to Vienna and they roomed together. In Vienna,
Hitler continued the same lazy lifestyle he had enjoyed in Linz after dropping
out of school. Kubizek described Hitler as a night owl who slept till noon,
would go out for walks taking in all the sights, then stay up late discussing
his ideas on everything from social reform to city planning. Hitler made
no effort to get a regular job, considering himself far above that. He dressed
like an artist and at night dressed like a young gentleman of leisure and
often attended the opera.

Kubizek also recalled Hitler displayed
an increasingly unstable personality with a terrible temper. At times he
was quite reasonable but he was always prone to sudden outbursts of rage
especially when he was corrected on anything. He had no real interest in
women, preferring to keep away from them and even smugly rebuffed those
who showed any interest in him. He strictly adhered to his Catholic upbringing
regarding sex, believing men and women should remain celibate until marriage.

Hitler was also prone to sudden bursts
of inspiration and had many interesting ideas but never finished anything
he started. Whether composing his own opera or redesigning the city of Vienna,
he would start with much enthusiasm and work hard, only to eventually lose
interest.

In October, 1908, Hitler tried for the
second time to gain admission to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. However,
his test drawings were judged as so poor that he was not even allowed to
take the formal exam. It was a bitter disappointment to Hitler and effectively
left him on the outside looking in at the artistic community in Vienna.
His friend Kubizek had successfully gained entrance to the Vienna Conservatory
and was studying music there, doing quite well, in contrast to Hitler.

Hitler soon parted company with his
friend in a rather strange manner. When Kubizek returned to Vienna after
two months of military training in November, 1908, he found Hitler had moved
out of their shared apartment and left no forwarding address.

Hitler now had no use for his friend
and made no attempt to find him again. He lived by himself, moving from
place to place as his savings gradually dwindled and his lifestyle spiraled
down hill. Despite the need for money, Hitler made no attempt to get regular
employment. He eventually pawned all his possessions and actually wound
up sleeping on park benches and begging for money. He quickly became a dirty,
smelly, unshaven young man wearing tattered clothes and did not even own
an overcoat. In December of 1909, freezing and half starved, he moved into
a homeless shelter. He ate at the soup kitchen operated by the nuns at a
nearby convent.

In February, 1910, he moved into a home
for poor men where he would stay for the next few years. Hitler sometimes
earned a little money as a day laborer, shoveling snow and carrying bags
at the train station. He then found he could earn a meager living selling
pictures of famous Vienna landmarks he copied from postcards. Another resident
at the home, Reinhold Hanish, acted as his agent, hawking Hitler's works
of art to various shops where they were mostly used to fill empty picture
frames. Hitler also painted posters for shop windows.

Hanish recalled Hitler as undisciplined
and moody, always hanging around the men's home, eager to discuss politics
and often making speeches to the residents. He usually flew into a rage
if anyone contradicted him. Eventually, Hitler quarreled with Hanish, even
accusing him of stealing his property and falsely testified against him
in court in August, 1910, getting Hanish an eight day jail sentence. (In
1938 Hanish was murdered on Hitler's orders after talking to the press about
him).

Hitler took to selling his own paintings
to mostly Jewish shop owners and was also assisted by Josef Neumann, a Jew
he befriended.

Hitler had a passion for reading, grabbing
all the daily newspapers available at the men's home, reading numerous political
pamphlets and borrowing many books from the library on German history and
mythology. He had a curious but academically untrained mind and examined
the complex philosophical works of Nietzsche, Hegel, Fichte, Treitschke
and the Englishman, Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Hitler picked up bits and
pieces of philosophy and ideas from them and wound up with a hodgepodge
of racist, nationalistic, anti-Semitic attitudes that over time became a
die hard philosophy, later to be described in his book, Mein Kampf.

The utter misery of his poverty also
deeply influenced Hitler. He adopted a harsh, survivalist mentality, which
left little room for consideration of kindness and compassion - an attitude
that would stay with him until the end.

"I owe it to that period that I grew
hard and am still capable of being hard."-
Hitler stated in Mein Kampf.

Even before he came to Vienna, Hitler
had a personality notable for its lack of empathy. Many historians have
concluded Hitler suffered psychological distress partly brought on by an
unhappy childhood, notably his relationship with his father, a domineering,
at times cruel man. At the same time, Hitler had also shown extraordinary
attachment to his over indulgent mother.

In Vienna, and later, Hitler suffered
bouts of depression. Other times he experienced extreme highs, only to be
followed by a drop back into the depths. One consistent personality trait
was the hysteria evident whenever someone displeased him. Hitler's personality
has been described as basically hysterical in nature.

Now, at age 21, he was becoming keenly
interested in politics, watching events unfold around him in Vienna.

After witnessing a large protest march
by workers, he immersed himself in an intensive study of the politics of
the workers' party, the Social Democrats. He gained appreciation of their
ability to organize large rallies and use propaganda and fear as a political
weapons.

From the sidelines he also watched the
two other main parties, the Pan German Nationalists and the Christian Social
Party, which heightened his interest in German nationalism and anti-Semitism.

Vienna, a city of two million, had a
Jewish population of just under two hundred thousand, including many traditionally
dressed ethnic Jews. In Linz, Hitler had only known a few "Germanized"Jews. The poor men's home Hitler
lived in was near a Jewish community.

Among the middle class in Vienna, anti-Semitism
was considered rather fashionable. The mayor, Karl Lueger, a noted anti-Semite,
was a member of the Christian Social Party which included anti-Semitism
in its political platform.

Hitler admired Lueger, a powerful politician,
for his speech making skills and effective use of propaganda in gaining
popular appeal. He also admired Lueger's skill in manipulating established
institutions such as the Catholic Church. He studied Lueger carefully and
modeled some of his later behavior on what he learned.

There were also anti-Semitic tabloids
and pamphlets available at the newsstands and at local coffee shops. On
first reading them, Hitler claims in his book Mein Kampf to have been put
off.

"...the tone, particularly of the
Viennese anti-Semitic press, seemed to me unworthy of the cultural tradition
of a great nation."

But also in Mein Kampf, Hitler describes
the transformation in his thinking regarding the Jews. It began with a chance
meeting.

"Once, as I was strolling through
the inner city, I suddenly encountered an apparition in a black caftan and
black hair locks. Is this a Jew? was my first thought."

"For, to be sure, they had not looked
like that in Linz. I observed the man furtively and cautiously, but the
longer I stared at this foreign face, scrutinizing feature for feature,
the more my first question assumed a new form: is this a German?"

To answer his own question, he immersed
himself in anti-Semitic literature. Then he went out and studied Jews as
they passed by.

"...the more I saw, the more sharply
they became distinguished in my eyes from the rest of humanity..."

"For me this was the time of the greatest
spiritual upheaval I have ever had to go through. I had ceased to be a weak-kneed
cosmopolitan and become an anti-Semite."

But at this point Hitler's anti-Semitism
was not apparent in his personal relationships with Jews. He still did business
with Jewish shop owners in selling his paintings and maintained the friendship
with Josef Neumann. However, the seeds of hate were planted and would be
nurtured by events soon to come, laying the foundation for one of the greatest
tragedies in all of human history.

Hitler left Vienna at age 24, to avoid
mandatory military service in the Austrian army, and thus avoid serving
the multicultural Austrian Empire he now despised.

Twenty four years after leaving Vienna,
Adolf Hitler would make a triumphant return as Führer of the German
Reich. However, the memory of those miserable days of failure in his youth
and the attitudes and ideas he acquired would forever remain.

In May of 1913, he moved to the German
fatherland and settled in Munich. But he was tracked down by the Austrian
authorities in January of 1914. Faced with the possibility of prison for
avoiding military service, he wrote a letter to the Austrian Consulate apologizing
and told of his recent years of misery.

"I never knew the beautiful word
youth." - Hitler stated in his letter.

The tone of the letter impressed the
Austrian officials and Hitler was not punished for dodging the service.
He took the necessary medical exam which he easily failed and the matter
was dropped altogether.

In Munich, Hitler continued painting,
once again making a small living by selling painted pictures of landmarks
to local shops. When asked by an old acquaintance how he would make a permanent
living, Hitler said it did not matter since there soon be a war.

On August 1, 1914, a huge, enthusiastic
crowd including Hitler gathered in a big public plaza in Munich - the occasion
- to celebrate the German proclamation of war.

Two days later, Hitler volunteered for
the German Army, enlisting in a Bavarian regiment.

"For me, as for every German, there
now began the greatest and most unforgettable time of my earthly existence.
Compared to the events of this gigantic struggle, everything past receded
to shallow nothingness." - Hitler said in Mein
Kampf.

On first hearing the news of war
Hitler had sunk to his knees and thanked heaven for being alive.

Hitler in World War One

In the muddy, lice infested, smelly
trenches of World War One, Adolf Hitler found a new home fighting for the
German Fatherland. After years of poverty, alone and uncertain, he now had
a sense of belonging and purpose.

The "War
to end all wars" began after the heir to
the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was gunned down by a young
Serbian terrorist on June 28, 1914. Events quickly escalated as Kaiser Wilhelm
of Germany urged Austria to declare war on Serbia. Russia then mobilized
against Austria. Germany mobilized against Russia. France and England then
mobilized against Germany.

All over Europe and England young men,
including Adolf Hitler, eagerly volunteered. Like most young soldiers before
them, they thought it would be a short war, but hopefully long enough for
them to see some action and participate in the great adventure.

It would turn out to be a long war in
which soldiers died by the millions. An entire generation of young men would
be wiped out. The war would also bring the downfall of the old European
culture of kings and noblemen and their codes of honor.

New technologies such as planes, tanks,
machine guns, long range artillery, and deadly gas would be used by the
armies against each other. But a stalemate developed along a line of entrenched
fortifications stretching from the North Sea, all the way through France
to the Saar River in Germany. In these miserable trenches, Adolf Hitler
became acquainted with war.

Hitler volunteered at age 25 by enlisting
in a Bavarian Regiment. After its first engagement against the British and
Belgians near Ypres, 2500 of the 3000 men in the Hitler's regiment were
killed, wounded or missing. Hitler escaped without a scratch. Throughout
most of the war Hitler had great luck avoiding life threatening injury.
More than once, he moved away from a spot where moments later a shell exploded
killing or wounding everyone.

Hitler, by all accounts, was an unusual
soldier with a sloppy manner and unmilitary bearing. But he was also eager
for action and always ready to volunteer for dangerous assignments even
after many narrow escapes from death.

Corporal Hitler was a dispatch runner,
taking messages back and forth from the command staff in the rear to the
fighting units near the battlefield. During lulls in the fighting he would
take out his watercolors and paint the landscapes of war.

Hitler, unlike his fellow soldiers,
never complained about bad food and the horrible conditions or talked about
women, preferring to discuss art or history. He received a few letters but
no packages from home and never asked for leave. His fellow soldiers regarded
Hitler as too eager to please his superiors, but generally a likable loner
notable for his luck in avoiding injury as well as his bravery.

On October, 7, 1916, Hitler's luck ran
out when he was wounded in the leg by a shell fragment during the battle
of the Somme. He was hospitalized in Germany. It was his first time away
from the front after two years of war. After his recovery, he went sight
seeing in Berlin, then was assigned to light duty in Munich. He was appalled
at the apathy and anti-war sentiment among German civilians. He blamed the
Jews for much of this and saw them as conspiring to spread unrest and undermine
the German war effort.

This idea of an anti-war conspiracy
involving Jews would become an obsession to add to other anti-Semitic notions
he acquired in Vienna, leading to an ever growing hatred of Jews.

To get away from the apathetic civilians,
Hitler asked to go back to the front and was sent back in March of 1917.

In August 1918, he received the iron
cross first class, a rarity for foot soldiers. Interestingly, the lieutenant
who recommended him for the medal was a Jew, a fact Hitler would later obscure.
Despite his good record and a total of five medals, he remained a corporal.
Due to his unmilitary appearance and odd personality, his superiors felt
he lacked leadership qualities and thought he would not command respect
as a sergeant.

As the tide of war turned against the
Germans and morale collapsed along the front, Hitler became depressed. He
would sometimes spend hours sitting in the corner of the tent in deep contemplation
then would suddenly burst onto his feet shouting about the "invisible
foes of the German people," namely Jews
and Marxists.

In October of 1918, he was temporarily
blinded after a British chlorine gas attack near Ypres. He was sent home
to a starving, war weary country full of unrest. He laid in a hospital bed
consumed with dread amid a swirl of rumors of impending disaster.

On November 10, 1918, an elderly pastor
came into the hospital and announced the news. The Kaiser and the House
of Hollenzollern had fallen. Their beloved Fatherland was now a republic.
The war was over.

Hitler described his reaction in Mein
Kampf...

"There followed terrible days and
even worse nights - I knew that all was lost...in these nights hatred grew
in me, hatred for those responsible for this deed."

Not the military, in his mind, but
the politicians back at home in Germany and primarily the Jews.

War Ends with German Defeat

Faced with an effective British blockade,
fierce resistance from the British and French armies, the entrance of the
United States army, political unrest and starvation at home, an economy
in ruins, mutiny in the navy, and mounting defeats on the battlefield, the
German generals requested armistice negotiations with the Allies in November
of 1918.

Under the terms of the armistice, the
German Army was allowed to remain intact and was not forced to admit defeat
by surrendering. U.S. General George Pershing had misgivings about this,
saying it would be better to have the German generals admit defeat so there
could be no doubt. The French and British were convinced however that Germany
would not be a threat again.

The failure to force the German General
Staff to admit defeat would have a huge impact on the future of Germany.
Although the army was later reduced in size, its impact would be felt after
the war as a political force dedicated to German nationalism, not democracy.

The German General Staff also would
support the false idea that the army had not been defeated on the battlefield,
but could have fought on to victory, except for being betrayed at home,
the infamous 'Stab in the Back' theory.

This 'Stab in the Back' theory would
become hugely popular among many Germans who found it impossible to swallow
defeat. During the war Adolf Hitler became obsessed with this idea, especially
laying blame on Jews and Marxists in Germany for undermining the war effort.
To Hitler, and so many others, the German politicians who signed the armistice
on November 11, 1918, would become known as the 'November Criminals'.

After the armistice, the remnants of
the German army straggled home from the front to face tremendous uncertainty.

Germany was now a republic, a form of
government (democracy) the Germans historically had little experience or
interest in. With the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm and the collapse of the
Hohenzollern Monarchy, the German Empire founded by Bismark in 1871 (The
Second Reich) came to an end.

The new German Republic would eventually
have a constitution that made it on paper one of the most liberal democracies
in history. Its ideals included; equality for all, that political power
would be only in the hands of the people, political minority representation
in the new Reichstag, a cabinet and chancellor elected by majority vote
in the Reichstag, and a president elected by the people.

But Germany was also a nation in political
and social chaos. In Berlin and Munich, left-wing Marxist groups proclaimed
Russian-like revolutions, only to meet violent opposition from right-wing
nationalist Freikorps (small armies of ex-soldiers
for hire) along with regular Army troops.

Communists, Socialists and even innocent
bystanders were rounded up and murdered in January, 1919, in Berlin, and
in May in Munich.

The leaders of the new German democracy
had made a deal with the German General Staff which allowed the generals
to maintain rank and privilege in return for the Army's support of the young
republic and a pledge to put down Marxism and help restore order.

Amid this political turmoil, on June
28, 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed by the victorious Allies and
was then dutifully ratified by the German democratic government. Under the
terms of the treaty, Germany alone was forced to accept responsibility for
causing the war and had to pay huge war reparations for all the damage.
Germany also had to give up land to France and Poland. The German Army was
limited to 100,000 men and was forbidden to have submarines or military
aircraft.

The treaty had the effect of humiliating
the German nation before the world. This would lead to a passionate desire
in many Germans, including Adolf Hitler, to see their nation throw off the
"shackles" of the treaty and once again take its place in the world - the
"rebirth" of Germany through a strong nationalist government. In years to
come, Hitler would speak out endlessly against the treaty and gain much
support. In addition, he would rail against the 'November Criminals' and
'Jewish Marxists.'

In the summer of 1919, Adolf Hitler
was still in the army and was stationed in Munich where he had become an
informer. Corporal Hitler had named soldiers in his barracks who had supported
the Marxist uprisings in Munich, resulting in their arrest and executions.

Hitler then became one of many undercover
agents in the German army weeding out Marxist influence within the ranks
and investigating subversive political organizations.

The army sent him to a political indoctrination
course held at the University of Munich where he quickly came to the attention
of his superiors. He describes it in Mein Kampf...

"One day I asked for the floor. One
of the participants felt obliged to break a lance for the Jews and began
to defend them in lengthy arguments. This aroused me to an answer. The overwhelming
majority of the students present took my standpoint. The result was that
a few days later I was sent into a Munich regiment as a so-called educational
officer."

Hitler's anti-Semitic outbursts impressed
his superiors including his mentor, Captain Karl Mayr (who later died in
Buchenwald). In August, 1919, Hitler was given the job of lecturing returning
German prisoners of war on the dangers of Communism and pacifism, as well
as democracy and disobedience. He also delivered tirades against the Jews
that were well received by the weary soldiers who were looking for someone
to blame for all their misfortunes.

A report on Hitler referred to him as"a born orator."

Hitler had discovered much to his delight
that he could speak well in front of a strange audience, hold their attention,
and sway them to his point of view.

For his next assignment, he was ordered
in September of 1919 to investigate a small group in Munich known as the
German Workers' Party.

Hitler Joins German Workers'
Party

Corporal Adolf Hitler was ordered in
September of 1919 to investigate a small group in Munich known as the German
Workers' Party.

The use of the term 'workers' attracted
the attention of the German Army which was now involved in crushing Marxist
uprisings.

On September 12, dressed in civilian
clothes, Hitler went to a meeting of the German Workers' Party in the back
room of a Munich beer hall, with about twenty five people. He listened to
a speech on economics by Gottfried Feder entitled, "How and by what means
is capitalism to be eliminated?"

After the speech, Hitler began to leave
when a man rose up and spoke in favor of the German state of Bavaria breaking
away from Germany and forming a new South German nation with Austria.

This enraged Hitler who spoke forcefully
against the man for fifteen minutes to the astonishment of everyone. One
of the founders of the German Workers' Party, Anton Drexler, reportedly
whispered, "...he's got the gift of the
gab. We could use him."

After Hitler's outburst ended, Drexler
hurried to Hitler and gave him a forty page pamphlet entitled, "My
Political Awakening."He urged Hitler to
read it and also invited Hitler to come back.

Early the next morning, sitting in his
cot in the barracks of the 2nd Infantry Regiment watching the mice eat bread
crumbs he left for them on the floor, Hitler remembered the pamphlet and
read it. He was delighted to find the pamphlet, written by Drexler, reflected
political thinking much like his own - building a strong nationalist, pro-military,
anti-Semitic party made up of working class people.

A few days later, Hitler received an
unexpected postcard saying he had been accepted as a member into the party.
He was asked to attend an executive committee meeting, which he did. At
that meeting he was joyfully welcomed as a new member although he was actually
very undecided on whether to join.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler describes the
condition of the party...

"...aside from a few directives,
there was nothing, no program, no leaflet, no printed matter at all, no
membership cards, not even a miserable rubber stamp..."

Although unimpressed by the present
condition of the German Workers' Party, Hitler was drawn to the sentiment
expressed by Drexler that this would somehow become a movement not just
a political party. And in this disorganized party, Hitler saw opportunity.

"This absurd little organization
with its few members seemed to me to possess the one advantage that it had
not frozen into an 'organization,' but left the individual opportunity for
real personal activity. Here it was still possible to work, and the smaller
the movement, the more readily it could be put into the proper form. Here,
the content, the goal, and the road could still be determined..."

He spent two days thinking it over then
decided.

"...I finally came to the conviction
that I had to take this step...It was the most decisive resolve of my life.
From here there was and could be no turning back."

Adolf Hitler joined the committee
of the German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei
or DAP) and thus entered politics.

Nazi Party is Formed

Adolf Hitler never held a regular job
and aside from his time in World War One, led a lazy lifestyle, from his
brooding teenage days in Linz through years spent in idleness and poverty
in Vienna. But after joining the German Workers' Party in 1919 at age thirty,
Hitler immediately began a frenzied effort to make it succeed.

The German Workers' Party consisted
mainly of an executive committee which had seven members, including Hitler.
To bring in new members Hitler prepared invitations which each committee
member gave to friends asking them to attend the party's monthly public
meeting, but few came.

Next they tried having invitations printed
at a stationary store. A few people came.

Then they placed an advertisement in
an anti-Semitic newspaper in Munich and at Hitler's insistence, moved the
public meeting to a beer cellar that would hold about a hundred. The other
committee members were concerned they might have trouble filling the place,
but just over a hundred showed up at the meeting held, October 16, 1919.

Hitler was scheduled to be the second
speaker at this meeting. It was to be his first time as a speaker, despite
the misgivings of committee members who doubted Hitler's ability at this
time.

But when Hitler got up to speak, he
astounded everyone with a highly emotional, at times near hysterical manner
of speech making. For Hitler, it was an important moment in his young political
career. He described the scene in Mein Kampf...

"I spoke for thirty minutes, and
what before I had simply felt within me, without in any way knowing it,
was now proved by reality: I could speak! After thirty minutes the people
in the small room were electrified and the enthusiasm was first expressed
by the fact that my appeal to the self-sacrifice of those present led to
the donation of three hundred marks."

The money was used to buy more advertising
and print leaflets. The German Workers' Party now featured Hitler as the
main attraction at its meetings. In his speeches Hitler railed against the
Treaty of Versailles and delivered anti-Semitic tirades, blaming the Jews
for Germany's problems. Attendance slowly increased, numbering in the hundreds.

Hitler took charge of party propaganda
in early 1920, and also recruited young men he had known in the Army. He
was aided in his recruiting efforts by Army Captain Ernst Röhm, a party
member, who would play a vital role in Hitler's eventual rise to power.

In Munich there were many alienated,
maladjusted soldiers and ex-soldiers with a thirst for adventure and a distaste
for the peace brought on by the Treaty of Versailles and the resulting democratic
republic. They joined the German Workers' Party in growing numbers.

There were many other political groups
looking for members, but none more successful than the Marxists. Genuine
fear existed there might be a widespread Communist revolution in Germany
like the Russian revolution. Hitler associated Marxism with the Jews, and
thus reviled it.

He also understood how a political party
directly opposed to a possible Communist revolution could play on the fears
of so many Germans and gain support.

In February of 1920, Hitler urged the
German Workers' Party to holds its first mass meeting. He met strong opposition
from leading party members who thought it was premature and feared it might
be disrupted by Marxists. Hitler had no fear of disruption. In fact he welcomed
it, knowing it would bring his party anti-Marxist notoriety. He even had
the hall decorated in red to aggravate the Marxists.

On February 24, 1920, Hitler was thrilled
when he entered the large meeting hall in Munich and saw two thousand people
waiting, including a large number of Communists.

A few minutes into his speech, he was
drowned out by shouting followed by open brawling between German Workers'
Party associates and disruptive Communists. Eventually, Hitler resumed speaking
and claims in Mein Kampf the shouting was gradually drowned out by applause.

He proceeded to outline the Twenty Five
Points of the German Workers' Party, its political platform, which included;
the union of all Germans in a greater German Reich, rejection of the Treaty
of Versailles, the demand for additional territories for the German people
(Lebensraum),
citizenship determined by race - no Jew to be considered a German, all income
not earned by work to be confiscated, a thorough reconstruction of the national
education system, religious freedom except for religions which endanger
the German race, and a strong central government for the execution of effective
legislation.

One by one Hitler went through the Twenty
Five Points, asking the rowdy crowd for its approval on each point, which
he got. For Hitler, the meeting was now a huge success.

"When after nearly four hours the
hall began to empty and the crowd, shoulder to shoulder, began to move,
shove, press toward the exit like a slow stream, I knew that now the principles
of a movement which could no longer be forgotten were moving out among the
German people."

"A fire was kindled from whose flame
one day the sword must come which would regain freedom for the Germanic
Siegfried and life for the German nation."

Hitler realized one thing the movement
lacked was a recognizable symbol or flag. In the summer of 1920, Hitler
chose the symbol which to this day remains perhaps the most infamous in
history, the swastika.

It was not something Hitler invented,
but is found even in the ruins of ancient times. Hitler had seen it each
day as a boy when he attended the Benedictine monastery school in Lambach,
Austria. The ancient monastery was decorated with carved stones and woodwork
that included several swastikas. They had also been seen around Germany
among the Freikorps (soldiers for hire), and appeared before as an emblem
used by anti-Semitic political parties.

But when it was placed inside a white
circle on a red background, it provided a powerful, instantly recognizable
symbol that immediately helped Hitler's party gain popularity. Hitler described
the symbolism involved...

"In the red we see the social idea
of the movement, in the white the national idea, in the swastika the mission
to struggle for the victory of Aryan man and at the same time the victory
of the idea of creative work, which is eternally anti-Semitic and will always
be anti-Semitic."

The German Workers' Party name was changed
by Hitler to include the term National Socialist. Thus the full name was
the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei orNSDAP)
called for short, Nazi.

By the end of 1920 it had about three
thousand members.

Hitler Named Leader of
Nazi Party

By early 1921, Adolf Hitler was becoming
highly effective at speaking in front of ever larger crowds. In February,
Hitler spoke before a crowd of nearly six thousand in Munich. To publicize
the meeting, he sent out two truckloads of Party supporters to drive around
with swastikas, cause a big commotion, and throw out leaflets, the first
time this tactic was used by the Nazis.

Hitler was now gaining notoriety outside
of the Nazi Party for his rowdy, at times hysterical tirades against the
Treaty of Versailles, rival politicians and political groups, especially
Marxists, and always the Jews.

The Nazi Party was centered in Munich
which had become a hotbed of ultra right wing German nationalists. This
included Army officers determined to crush Marxism and undermine or even
overthrow the young German democracy centered in Berlin.

Slowly, they began looking toward the
rising politician, Adolf Hitler, and the growing Nazi movement as the vehicle
to hitch themselves to. Hitler was already looking at how he could carry
his movement to the rest of Germany. He traveled to Berlin to visit nationalist
groups during the summer of 1921.

But in his absence, he faced an unexpected
revolt among his own Nazi Party leadership in Munich.

The Party was still run by an executive
committee whose original members now considered Hitler to be highly overbearing,
even dictatorial. To weaken Hitler's position, they formed an alliance with
a group of socialists from Augsburg.

Hitler rushed back to Munich and countered
them by announcing his resignation from the Party, July 11, 1921.

They realized the loss of Hitler would
effectively mean the end of the Nazi Party. Hitler seized the moment and
announced he would return on the condition that he was made chairman and
given dictatorial powers.

Infuriated committee members, including
Anton Drexler, founder of the Party, held out at first. Meanwhile, an anonymous
pamphlet appeared entitled, "Adolf Hitler:
Is he a traitor?"It attacked Hitler's
lust for power and criticized the violence prone men now surrounding him.
Hitler responded to its publication in a Munich newspaper by suing for libel
and later won a small settlement.

The executive committee of the Nazi
Party eventually backed down and Hitler's demands were put to a vote of
the party members. Hitler received 543 votes for, and only one against.

At the next gathering, July 29, 1921,
Adolf Hitler was introduced as Führer of the Nazi Party, marking the
first time that title was publicly used to address him.

The Beer Hall Putsch

A series of financial events unfolded
in the years 1921 though 1923 that would propel the Nazis to new heights
of daring and would even prompt Hitler into attempting to take over Germany.

In April of 1921, the victorious European
Allies of World War One, notably France and England, presented a bill to
Germany demanding payment for damages caused in the war which Germany had
started. This bill (33 billion dollars) for war reparations had the immediate
effect of causing ruinous inflation in Germany.

The German currency, the mark, slipped
drastically in value. It had been four marks to the US dollar until the
war reparations were announced. Then it became 75 to the dollar and in 1922
sank to 400 to the dollar. The German government asked for a postponement
of payments. The French refused. The Germans defied them by defaulting on
their payments. In response to this, in January of 1923, the French Army
occupied the industrial part of Germany known as the Ruhr.

The German mark fell to 18,000 to the
dollar. By July, 1923, it sank to 160,000. By August, 1,000,000. And by
November, 1923, it took 4,000,000,000 marks to buy a dollar.

For the moment, the people stood by
their government, admiring its defiance of the French. But in September
of 1923, the German government made a fateful decision to resume making
payments. Bitter resentment and unrest swelled among the people, inciting
extremist political groups to action and quickly bringing Germany to the
brink of chaos.

The Nazis and other similar groups now
felt the time was right to strike. The German state of Bavaria where the
Nazis were based was a hotbed of groups opposed to the democratic government
in Berlin. By now, November 1923, the Nazis, with 55,000 followers, were
the biggest and best organized. With Nazi members demanding action, Hitler
knew he had to act or risk losing the leadership of his Party.

Hitler and the Nazis hatched a plot
in which they would kidnap the leaders of the Bavarian government and force
them at gunpoint to accept Hitler as their leader. Then, according to their
plan, with the aid of famous World War One General Erich Ludendorff, they
would win over the German army, proclaim a nationwide revolt and bring down
the German democratic government in Berlin.

They put this plan into action when
they learned there would be a large gathering of businessmen in a Munich
beer hall and the guests of honor were to be the Bavarian leaders they wanted
to kidnap.

On November 8, 1923, SA troops under
the direction of Hermann Göring surrounded the place. At 8:30 p.m.
Hitler and his storm troopers burst into the beer hall causing instant panic.

Hitler fired a pistol shot into the
ceiling. "Silence!" he yelled at the stunned crowd.

Hitler and Göring forced their
way to the podium as armed SA men continued to file into the hall. State
Commissioner Gustav von Kahr, whose speech had been interrupted by all this,
yielded the podium to Hitler.

"The National Revolution has begun!"
Hitler shouted. "...No one may leave
the hall. Unless there is immediate quiet I shall have a machine gun posted
in the gallery. The Bavarian and Reich
governments have been removed and a provisional national government formed.
The barracks of the Reichswehr and police are occupied. The Army and the
police are marching on the city under the swastika banner!"

None of that was true, but those in
the beer hall could not know otherwise.

Hitler then ordered the three highest
officials of the Bavarian government into a back room. State Commissioner
Kahr, along with the head of the state police, Colonel Hans von Seisser,
and commander of the German Army in Bavaria, General Otto von Lossow, did
as they were told and went into the room where Hitler informed them they
were to join him in proclaiming a Nazi revolution and would become part
of the new government.

But to Hitler's great surprise, his
three captives simply glared at him and at first even refused to talk to
him. Hitler responded by waving his pistol at them, yelling,"I
have four shots in my pistol! Three for you, gentlemen. The last bullet
for myself!"

But the revolution in the back room
continued to go poorly for Hitler. Then, on a sudden impulse, Hitler dashed
out of the room and went back out to the podium and shouted...

"... The government of the November
criminals and the Reich President are declared to be removed. A new national
government will be named this very day in Munich. A new German National
Army will be formed immediately. ...The task of the provisional German National
Government is to organize the march on that sinful Babel, Berlin, and save
the German people! Tomorrow will find either a National Government in Germany
or us dead!"

This led everyone in the beer hall to
believe the men in the back room had given in to Hitler and were joining
in with the Nazis. There was wild cheering for Hitler.

General Ludendorff now arrived. Hitler
knew the three government leaders in the back room would actually listen
to him.

At Hitler's urging, Ludendorff spoke
to the men in the back room and advised them to go along with the Nazi revolution.
They reluctantly agreed, then went out to the podium and faced the crowd,
showing their support for Hitler and pledging loyalty to the new regime.
An emotional Hitler spoke to the crowd.

"I am going to fulfill the vow I
made to myself five years ago when I was a blind cripple in the military
hospital - to know neither rest nor peace until the November criminals had
been overthrown, until on the ruins of the wretched Germany of today there
should have arisen once more a Germany of power and greatness, of freedom
and splendor."

The crowd in the beer hall roared their
approval and sang "Deutschland über
Alles". Hitler was euphoric. This was turning
into a night of triumph for him. Tomorrow he might actually be the new leader
of Germany.

But then word came that attempts to
take over several military barracks had failed and that German soldiers
inside the barracks were holding out against the Nazi storm troopers. Hitler
decided to leave the beer hall and go to the scene to personally resolve
the problem.

Leaving the beer hall was a fateful
error. In his absence the Nazi revolution quickly began to unravel. The
three Bavarian government leaders, Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser, slipped out
of the beer hall after falsely promising Ludendorff they would remain loyal
to Hitler.

Meanwhile, Hitler had no luck in getting
the German soldiers who were holding out in the barracks to surrender. Having
failed at that, he went back to the beer hall.

When he arrived back at the beer hall
he was aghast to find his revolution fizzling. There were no plans for tomorrow's
march on Berlin. Munich wasn't even being occupied. Nothing was happening.

In fact, only one building, Army headquarters
at the War Ministry had been occupied, by Ernst Röhm and his SA troopers.
Elsewhere, rogue bands of Nazi thugs roamed the city of Munich rounding
up some political opponents and harassing Jews.

In the early morning hours of November
9, State Commissioner Kahr broke his promise to Hitler and Ludendorff and
issued a statement blasting Hitler, "...Declarations
extorted from me, Gen. Lossow and Colonel von Seisser by pistol point are
null and void. Had the senseless and purposeless attempt at revolt succeeded,
Germany would have been plunged into the abyss and Bavaria with it."

Kahr also ordered the breakup of the
Nazi party and its fighting forces.

Gen. Lossow also abandoned Hitler and
ordered Army reinforcements into Munich to put down the Nazi putsch. Troops
were rushed in and by dawn the War Ministry building containing Röhm
and his SA troops was surrounded.

Hitler was up all night frantically
trying to decide what to do. General Ludendorff then gave him an idea. The
Nazis would simply march into the middle of Munich and take it over. Because
of his World War One fame, Ludendorff reasoned, no one would dare fire on
him. He even assured Hitler the police and the Army would likely join them.
The desperate Hitler went for the idea.

Around 11 a.m., a column of three thousand
Nazis, led by Hitler, Göring and Ludendorff marched toward the center
of Munich. Carrying one of the flags was a young party member named Heinrich
Himmler.

After reaching the center of Munich,
the Nazis headed toward the War Ministry building but they encountered a
police blockade along the route. As they stood face to face with about a
hundred armed policemen, Hitler yelled out to them to surrender. They didn't.
Shots rang out. Both sides fired. It lasted about a minute. Sixteen Nazis
and three police were killed. Göring was hit in the groin. Hitler suffered
a dislocated shoulder when the man he had locked arms with was shot and
dragged Hitler down to the pavement.

Hitler's bodyguard, Ulrich Graf, jumped
onto Hitler to shield him and took several bullets, probably saving Hitler's
life. Hitler then crawled along the sidewalk out of the line of fire and
scooted away into a waiting car, leaving his comrades behind. The rest of
the Nazis scattered or were arrested. Ludendorff, true to his heroic form,
walked right through the line of fire to the police and was then arrested.

Hitler wound up at the home his friends,
the Hanfstaengls, where he was reportedly talked out of suicide. He had
become deeply despondent and expected to be shot by the authorities. He
spent two nights hiding in the Hanfstaengl's attic. On the third night,
police arrived and arrested him. He was taken to the prison at Landsberg
where his spirits lifted somewhat after he was told he was going to get
a public trial.

With the collapse of the Nazi revolution,
it now appeared to most observers that Hitler's political career and the
Nazi movement itself had come to a crashing, almost laughable end.

Hitler
on Trial for Treason

The trial of Adolf Hitler for high treason
after the Beer Hall Putsch was not the end of Hitler's political career
as many had expected. In many ways marked the true beginning.

Overnight, Hitler became a nationally
and internationally known figure due to massive press coverage. The judges
in this sensational trial were chosen by a Nazi sympathizer in the Bavarian
government. They allowed Hitler to use the courtroom as a propaganda platform
from which he could speak at any length on his own behalf, interrupt others
at any time and even cross examine witnesses.

Rather than deny the charges, Hitler
admitted wanting to overthrow the government and outlined his reasons, portraying
himself as a German patriot and the democratic government itself, its founders
and leaders, as the real criminals.

"I alone bear the responsibility.
But I am not a criminal because of that. If today I stand here as a revolutionary,
it is as a revolutionary against the revolution. There is no such thing
as high treason against the traitors of 1918."

Hitler considered the traitors of 1918
to be the German politicians responsible for the so called 'stab in the
back,' who prematurely ended World War One and established the German democratic
republic. In Hitler's mind and among many Germans, their Army had not been
defeated on the battlefield but had been undermined by political treachery
at home.

In reality, German Army leaders themselves
had opened negotiations with the Allies to end the war which they were losing.

But newspapers quoted Hitler at length.
Thus, for the first time, the German people as a whole had a chance to get
acquainted with this man and his thinking. And many liked what they heard.

During 24 days of long, rambling arguments,
Hitler's daring grew. As the trial concluded, sensing the national impact
he was having, Hitler gave this closing statement.

"...The man who is born to be a dictator
is not compelled. He wills it. He is not driven forward, but drives himself.
There is nothing immodest about this. Is it immodest for a worker to drive
himself toward heavy labor? Is it presumptuous of a man with the high forehead
of a thinker to ponder through the nights till he gives the world an invention?
The man who feels called upon to govern a people has no right to say, 'If
you want me or summon me, I will cooperate.' No! It is his duty to step
forward. The army which we have now formed is growing day to day. I nourish
the proud hope that one day the hour will come when these rough companies
will grow to battalions, the battalions to regiments, the regiments to divisions,
that the old cockade will be taken from the mud, that the old flags will
wave again, that that there will be a reconciliation at the last great divine
judgment which we are prepared to face. For it is not you, gentlemen, who
pass judgment on us. That judgment is spoken by the eternal court of history...Pronounce
us guilty a thousand times over: the goddess of the eternal court of history
will smile and tear to pieces the State Prosecutor's submissions and the
court's verdict; for she acquits us."

The court's verdict - guilty. Possible
sentence - life. Hitler's sentence - five years, eligible for parole in
six months.

The three judges in the trial had become
so sympathetic that the presiding judge had to persuade them to find him
guilty at all. They agreed to find Hitler guilty only after being assured
he would get early parole.

Other Nazi leaders arrested after the
failed Putsch got light sentences as well. General Ludendorff was even acquitted.

On April 1, 1924, Hitler was taken to
the old fortress at Landsberg and given a spacious private cell with a fine
view. He got gifts, was allowed to receive visitors whenever he liked and
had his own private secretary, Rudolph Hess.

The Nazi Party after the Putsch became
fragmented and disorganized, but Hitler had gained national influence by
taking advantage of the press to make his ideas known. Now, although behind
bars, Hitler was not about to stop communicating.

Pacing back and forth in his cell,
he continued expressing his ideas, while Hess took down every word. The
result would be the first volume of a book, Mein Kampf, outlining Hitler's
political and racial ideas in brutally intricate detail, serving both as
a blueprint for future actions and as a warning to the world.

Hitler's Book Mein
Kampf

Although it is thought of as having
been 'written' by Hitler, Mein Kampf is not a book in the usual sense. Hitler
never actually sat down and pecked at a typewriter or wrote longhand, but
instead dictated it to Rudolph Hess while pacing around his prison cell
in 1923-24 and later at an inn at Berchtesgaden.

Reading Mein Kampf is like listening
to Hitler speak at length about his youth, early days in the Nazi Party,
future plans for Germany, and ideas on politics and race.

The original title Hitler chose was
"Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice."
His Nazi publisher knew better and shortened it to Mein Kampf, simply My
Struggle, or My Battle.

In his book Hitler divides humans into
categories based on physical appearance, establishing higher and lower orders,
or types of humans. At the top, according to Hitler, is the Germanic man
with his fair skin, blond hair and blue eyes. Hitler refers to this type
of person as an Aryan. He asserts the Aryan is the supreme form of human,
or master race.

And so it follows in Hitler's thinking,
if there is a supreme form of human, then there must be others less than
supreme, the Untermenschen, or racially inferior. Hitler assigns
this position to Jews and the Slavic peoples, notably the Czechs, Poles,
and Russians.

"...it (Nazi philosophy) by no means
believes in an equality of races, but along with their difference it recognizes
their higher or lesser value and feels itself obligated to promote the victory
of the better and stronger, and demand the subordination of the inferior
and weaker in accordance with the eternal will that dominates this universe."
- Hitler states in Mein Kampf

Hitler then states the Aryan is also
culturally superior.

"All the human culture, all the results
of art, science, and technology that we see before us today, are almost
exclusively the creative product of the Aryan..."

"Hence it is no accident that the
first cultures arose in places where the Aryan, in his encounters with lower
peoples, subjugated them and bent them to his will. They then became the
first technical instrument in the service of a developing culture."

Hitler goes on to say that subjugated
peoples actually benefit by being conquered because they come in contact
with and learn from the superior Aryans. However, he adds they benefit only
as long the Aryan remains absolute master and doesn't mingle or inter-marry
with inferior conquered peoples.

But it is the Jews, Hitler says, who
are engaged in a conspiracy to keep this master race from assuming its rightful
position as rulers of the world, by tainting its racial and cultural purity
and even inventing forms of government in which the Aryan comes to believe
in equality and fails to recognize his racial superiority.

"The mightiest counterpart to the
Aryan is represented by the Jew."

Hitler describes the struggle for world
domination as an ongoing racial, cultural, and political battle between
Aryans and Jews. He outlines his thoughts in detail, accusing the Jews of
conducting an international conspiracy to control world finances, controlling
the press, inventing liberal democracy as wells as Marxism, promoting prostitution
and vice, and using culture to spread disharmony.

"...for the higher he climbs, the
more alluring his old goal that was once promised him rises from the veil
of the past, and with feverish avidity his keenest minds see the dream of
world domination tangibly approaching."

This conspiracy idea and the notion
of 'competition' for world domination between Jews and Aryans would become
widespread beliefs in Nazi Germany and would even be taught to school children.

This, combined with Hitler's racial
attitude toward the Jews, would be shared to various degrees by millions
of Germans and people from occupied countries, so that they either remained
silent or actively participated in the Nazi effort to exterminate the entire
Jewish population of Europe.

Mein Kampf also provides an explanation
for the military conquests later attempted by Hitler and the Germans. Hitler
states that since the Aryans are the master race, they are entitled simply
by that fact to acquire more land for themselves. This Lebensraum, or living
space, will be acquired by force, Hitler says, and includes the lands to
the east of Germany, namely Russia. That land would be used to cultivate
food and to provide room for the expanding Aryan population at the expense
of the Slavic peoples, who were to be removed, eliminated, or enslaved.

But in order to achieve this Hitler
states Germany must first defeat its old enemy France, to avenge the German
defeat of World War One and to secure the western border. Hitler bitterly
recalls the end of the first world war saying the German Army was denied
its chance for victory on the battlefield by political treachery at home.
In the second volume of Mein Kampf he attaches most of the blame to Jewish
conspirators in a highly menacing and ever more threatening tone.

When Mein Kampf was first released in
1925 it sold poorly. People had been hoping for a juicy autobiography or
a behind the scenes story of the Beer Hall Putsch. What they got were hundreds
of pages of long, hard to follow sentences and wandering paragraphs composed
by a self-educated man.

However, after Hitler became Chancellor
of Germany, millions of copies were sold. It was considered proper to own
a copy and to give one to newlyweds, high school graduates, or to celebrate
any similar occasion. But few Germans ever read it cover to cover. Although
it made him rich, Hitler would later express regret that he produced Mein
Kampf, considering the extent of its revelations.

Those revelations concerning the
nature of his character and his blueprint for Germany's future served as
a warning to the world. A warning that was mostly ignored.

A New Beginning

A few days before Christmas, 1924, Adolf
Hitler emerged a free man after nine months in prison, having learned from
his mistakes. In addition to creating the book, Mein Kampf, Hitler
had given considerable thought to the failed Nazi revolution (Beer
Hall Putsch) of November 1923, and its
implications for the future.

He now realized it had been premature
to attempt to overthrow the democratic government by force without the support
of the German Army and other established institutions. He was determined
not to make that mistake again. Now, no matter how much his Nazi Party members
wanted action taken against the young German democratic republic, it simply
would not happen. He would not give in to them as he had done in November
1923, with disastrous, even laughable results.

Hitler had a new idea on how to topple
the government and take over Germany for himself and the Nazis - play by
the democratic rules and get elected.

"...Instead of working to achieve
power by an armed coup we shall have to hold our noses and enter the Reichstag
against the Catholic and Marxist deputies. If outvoting them takes longer
than outshooting them, at least the results will be guaranteed by their
own Constitution! Any lawful process is slow. But sooner or later we shall
have a majority - and after that Germany." -
Hitler stated while in prison.

The Nazi Party would be organized like
a government itself, so that when power was achieved and democracy was legitimately
ended, this 'government in waiting' could slip right into place.

But before any of this could be started,
Hitler had some problems to overcome. After the Beer Hall Putsch, the government
of the German state of Bavaria banned the Nazi Party and its newspaper,
the Völkischer Beobachter (Peoples' Observer). Also the Nazi Party
was now badly disorganized with much infighting among its leaders.

Early in 1925, Hitler visited the Prime
Minister of Bavaria and managed to convince him to lift the ban, on the
promise of good behavior, and after promising the Nazis would work within
the rules of the democratic constitution. He then wrote a long editorial
for the Völkischer Beobachtercalled "A New Beginning" published
February 26, 1925.

On February 27, the Nazis held their
first big meeting since the Beer Hall Putsch at which Hitler reclaimed his
position as absolute leader of the Nazi Party and patched up some of the
ongoing feuds. But during his two hour speech before four thousand cheering
Nazis, Hitler got carried away and started spewing out the same old threats
against the democratic republic, Marxists, and Jews.

For this, the government of Bavaria
slapped him with a two year ban on public speaking. It was a major setback
for Hitler who owed much of his success to his speech making ability. But
rather than be discouraged or slowed down, Hitler immediately began reorganizing
the Nazi Party with feverish effort.

The Nazi party itself was divided into
two major political organizations.

PO I - Dedicated to undermining
and overthrowing the German democratic republic.

PO II - Designed to create a
government in waiting, a highly organized Nazi government within the republic
that would some day replace it. PO II even had its own departments of Agriculture,
Economy, Interior, Foreign Affairs, Propaganda, Justice, along with Race
and Culture.

Germany was divided up by the Nazis
into thirty four districts, or Gaue, with each one having a Gauleiter, or
leader. The Gauitself was divided into circles, Kreise, and each
one had a Kreisleiter, or circle leader. The circles were divided into Ortsgruppen,
or local groups. And in the big cities, the local groups were divided along
streets and blocks.

For young people, the Hitler Jugend,
or Hitler Youth was formed. It was for boys, aged 15 to 18, and was modeled
after the popular boy scout programs. Younger boys aged 10 to 15 could join
the Deutsches Jungvolk. There was an organization for girls called Bund
Duetscher Maedeland for women, the Frauenschaften.

Also at this time, Hitler began to reorganize
the SA, his Nazi storm troopers, which he referred to in Mein Kampfas,
"...an instrument for the conduct and reinforcement
of the movement's struggle for its philosophy of life."

The SA began as a organization of Nazi
street brawlers originally called the "monitor
troop" that kept Nazi meetings from being
broken up by Marxists and fought with them in the streets as well. It had
also been Hitler's main 'instrument' in the failed Putsch.

Realizing the German man's fondness
for uniforms, the SA adopted a brown-shirted outfit, with boots, swastika
armband, badges and cap. Nazi uniforms along with the swastika symbol would
become important tools in providing recognition and visibility, thus increasing
public awareness of the party.

At this time, within the SA, a new highly
disciplined guard unit was formed by Hitler that would be solely responsible
to him and would serve as his personal body guard. It was called the Schutzstaffel,
the staff guard or SS for short. The SS adopted a black uniform, modeled
party after the Italian Fascists. A former stationery salesman, Josef Berchtold,
was its first leader. A young man who had done a variety of odd jobs for
the party became member number 168. His name was Heinrich Himmler.

But despite all this effort, the Nazis
now ran into a big obstacle that limited the Party's success. Things were
getting better in Germany. The economy was improving and unemployment was
dropping. The big German industrialists were now debt free. Factory output
was increasing as investment capital came pouring in from the United States.

An American named Charles G. Dawes had
drawn up a plan, approved by the Allies, that reduced German war reparations
(the amount of money Germany had to pay
for damages it caused in the World War One).
The Dawes Plan stabilized the German currency, the mark. The plan also provided
for huge loans from America to help German industry rebuild. The German
government also borrowed from the U.S. to finance its vast array of new
social programs and municipal building projects including airfields, sports
stadiums and even swimming pools.

And Germany now had a new president,
a sleepy eyed old gentleman named Paul von Hindenburg, a famous World War
One Field Marshal. He was unanimously backed by the conservative and middle-of-the-road
political parties to help bring stability to the republic and to thwart
any attempt by radical parties to capture the presidency.

The German Army had made its peace with
the young republic. Although forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles to exceed
100,000 soldiers and denied modern equipment and planes, thousands of men
existed in thinly veiled paramilitary organizations funded by the Army.
The German General Staff, disbanded by the treaty, simply disguised itself
among its troops. The Army was also secretly engaged in developing new technologies
in Russian factories and was involved in training exercises with the Russian
Army.

Thus, despite appearances to the Allies,
the German General Staff and its Army was allowed to achieve its primary
goal, self preservation and advancement, and so it supported German democracy
for the time being.

As things got better economically, there
was a sense of relaxation among the German people. Since they didn't have
to struggle so much for daily existence, they had time for enjoyment, outdoor
recreation, the arts, and sitting around beer halls and cafes. Among these
people, the name of Adolf Hitler was likely to bring a smile, perhaps getting
him a bit confused with the great film comedian Charlie Chaplin who looked
like him and even had some of the same body language.

Amid all this, Adolf Hitler new it
was going to be slow going for his party which had counted so many unhappy,
disgruntled men among its early members. But Hitler also had a sense that
the good times would not last. The German republic was living on borrowed
money and borrowed time. The underlying political and racial tensions he
was so keen to exploit were still there, only dormant. And when the good
times were over, they would once again come looking for him. But for now
he just had to wait.

The Quiet Years

Adolf Hitler described the quiet years
between 1926 and 1929 as one of the happiest times of his life. In the scenic
mountains above the village of Berchtesgaden in the German state of Bavaria,
he found an ideal home. He spent his days gazing at inspiring, majestic
mountain views and dreaming of future glory for himself and his German Reich.

Those dreams centered around asserting
the supremacy of the Germanic race, acquiring more living space (Lebensraum)
for the German people, and dealing harshly with Jews and Marxists.

By May of 1926, Hitler had overcome
any remaining rivals within the Nazi Party and assumed the title of supreme
leader (Führer). Ideological differences and infighting
between factions of the Nazi Party were resolved by Hitler through his considerable
powers of personal persuasion during closed door meetings with embattled
leaders.

The party itself experienced slow growth,
numbering only about 17,000 in early 1926. Hitler had been forbidden to
speak in public until 1927 by the Bavarian government. He was still on parole,
facing the possibility of being deported back to his Austrian homeland.

Much to his advantage, however, he enjoyed
a following among upper class socialites who were strangely drawn to this
charismatic but socially awkward man. Hitler delighted in their attention
and their money. He wound up with a brand new red Mercedes in which he was
chauffeured around the Bavarian countryside taking in the sights with his
Nazi companions.

During these quiet years, Joseph Goebbels
first came to Hitler's attention and experienced a quick rise in the Nazi
hierarchy. Goebbels, a brilliant but somewhat neurotic would-be writer,
displayed huge talents for speech making, organizing, and propaganda. He
was a rarity among the Nazis, a highly educated man, with a Ph.D. in literature
from Heidelberg.

Goebbels was a little man, about five
feet tall, who walked with a limp as a result of infantile paralysis. He
kept a diary which reveals how quickly he became infatuated with Hitler.

"Great joy. He greets me like an
old friend. And looks after me. How I love him!"-
Goebbels wrote after his second meeting with Hitler.

But this 'love' was tempered by ideological
differences. Goebbels belonged to the Nazi faction led by Gregor Strasser
that actually believed in the 'socialism' of National Socialism and had
sympathy for Marxism, a sentiment totally unacceptable to Hitler.

In his diary, Goebbels describes his
reaction to a meeting in which Hitler attempted to straighten him out.

"We ask. He gives brilliant replies.
I love him. Social question. Quite new perspectives. He has thought it all
out...He sets my mind at rest on all points. He is a man in every way, in
every respect. Such a firebrand, he can be my leader. I bow to the greater
man, the political genius!"

And later, after spending a few days
with Hitler at Berchtesgaden...

"These days have signposted my road!
A star shines leading me from deep misery! I am his to the end. My last
doubts have vanished. Germany will live. Heil
Hitler!"

Goebbels was sent by Hitler in October,
1926, to the German capital, Berlin, to be its Gauleiter. Once there, he
faced the huge task of reorganizing and publicizing the largely ignored
Nazi Party.

Berlin proved to be a training ground
for the future Propaganda Minister. He skillfully used good and even bad
publicity to get the party noticed. He organized meetings, gave speeches,
published a newspaper, plastered posters all over neighborhoods, and provoked
confrontations with Marxists. The party membership grew.

But problems arose after Nazi storm
troopers badly beat up an old pastor who heckled Goebbels during a Nazi
rally. The police declared the party illegal in Berlin and eventually banned
Nazi speech making throughout the entire German state of Prussia.

The ban was short-lived however. It
was lifted in the spring of 1927. Hitler then came to Berlin and gave a
speech before a crowd of about 5000 supporters.

On May 20, national elections were held
in Germany. The Nazis had a poor showing, although Goebbels won a seat in
the Reichstag. For the average German, the Nazis at this time had little
appeal. Things seemed to be just fine without them. The economy was strong,
inflation was under control, and people were working again.

Adolf Hitler was simply biding his time,
knowing it would not last. At Berchtesgaden, Hitler finished dictating the
second volume of Mein Kampf to Rudolph Hess. In the summer of 1928, Hitler
rented a small country house with a magnificent view of the Bavarian mountains.
Years later this would be the site of his sprawling villa.

Now, at age 39, Hitler had a place he
could finally call home. He settled in to the little country house and invited
his step sister, Angela, to leave Vienna and come to take over the daily
chores. Angela arrived along with her two daughters, Friedl and Geli.

Geli was a lively twenty year old with
dark blond hair and Viennese charm, qualities that were hugely appealing
to a man nearly twice her age. Hitler quickly fell in love with her. He
fawned over her like a teenager in love for the first time. He went shopping
with her and patiently stood by as she tried on clothes. He took her to
theaters, cafes, concerts and even to party meetings.

This relationship between Hitler and
his niece was for the most part socially acceptable according to local customs
since she was the daughter of his half sister.

It was a relationship that would ultimately
end in tragedy a few years later with her suicide. But for now, in late
1929, she existed as the object of Hitler's affection.

In another part of the world, Wall Street
in New York, events were happening that would bring an end to this quiet
time for Adolf Hitler and would ultimately help put the Nazis in power in
Germany.

On October 29, the Wall Street stock
market crashed with disastrous worldwide effects. First in America, then
the rest of the world, companies went bankrupt, banks failed and people
instantly lost their life savings.

Unemployment soon soared and poverty
and starvation became real possibilities for everyone.

The people panicked. Governments seemed
powerless against the worldwide economic collapse. Fear ruled. Governments
stood on the brink. The Great Depression had begun.

Adolf Hitler knew his time had come.

Germans Elect Nazis

Adolf Hitler and the Nazis waged a modern
whirlwind campaign in 1930 unlike anything ever seen in Germany. Hitler
traveled the country delivering dozens of major speeches, attending meetings,
shaking hands, signing autographs, posing for pictures, and even kissing
babies.

Germany was in the grip of the Great
Depression with a population suffering from poverty, misery, and uncertainty,
amid increasing political instability.

For Hitler, the master speech maker,
the long awaited opportunity to let loose his talents on the German people
had arrived. He would find in this downtrodden people, an audience very
willing to listen. In his speeches, Hitler offered the Germans what they
needed most, encouragement. He gave them heaps of vague promises while avoiding
the details. He used simple catchphrases, repeated over and over.

His campaign appearances were carefully
staged events. Audiences were always kept waiting, deliberately letting
the tension increase, only to be broken by solemn processions of Brownshirts
with golden banners, blaring military music, and finally the appearance
of Hitler amid shouts of "Heil!"The effect in a closed in hall with theatrical style
lighting and decorations of swastikas was overwhelming and very catching.

Hitler began each speech in low, hesitating
tones, gradually raising the pitch and volume of his voice then exploding
in a climax of frenzied indignation. He combined this with carefully rehearsed
hand gestures for maximum effect. He skillfully played on the emotions of
the audience bringing the level of excitement higher and higher until the
people wound up a wide eyed, screaming, frenzied mass that surrendered to
his will and looked on him with pseudo-religious adoration.

Hitler offered something to everyone;
work to the unemployed, prosperity to failed business people, profits to
industry, expansion to the Army, social harmony and an end of class distinctions
to idealistic young students, and restoration of German glory to those in
despair. He promised to bring order amid chaos, a feeling of unity to all
and the chance to belong. He would make Germany strong again, end payment
of war reparations to the Allies, tear up the treaty of Versailles, stamp
out corruption, keep down Marxism, and deal harshly with the Jews.

He appealed to all classes of Germans.
The name of the Nazi party itself was deliberately all inclusive - the National
Socialist German Workers' Party.

All of the Nazis, from Hitler, down
to the leader of the smallest city block, worked tirelessly, relentlessly,
to pound their message into the minds of the Germans.

On election day September 14, 1930,
the Nazis received 6,371,000 votes, over eighteen percent of the total,
and were thus entitled to 107 seats in the German Reichstag. It was a stunning
victory for Hitler. Overnight, the Nazi party went from the smallest to
the second largest party in Germany.

It propelled Hitler to solid national
and international prestige and aroused the curiosity of the world press.
He was besieged with interview requests. Foreign journalists wanted to know
- what did he mean - tear up the Treaty of Versailles and end war reparations?
- and that Germany wasn't responsible for the first World War?

Gone was the Charlie Chaplin image of
Hitler as the laughable fanatic behind the Beer Hall Putsch. The beer hall
revolutionary had been replaced by the skilled manipulator of the masses.

On October 13, 1930, dressed in their
brown shirts, the elected Nazi deputies marched in unison into the Reichstag
and took their seats. When the roll call was taken, each one shouted, "Present!
Heil Hitler!"

They had no intention of cooperating
with the democratic government, knowing it was to their advantage to let
things get worse in Germany, thus increasing the appeal of Hitler to an
ever more miserable people.

Nazi storm troopers dressed in civilian
clothes celebrated their electoral victory by smashing in the windows of
Jewish shops, restaurants and department stores, an indication of things
to come.

Now, for the floundering German democracy,
the clock was ticking and time was on Hitler's side.

Success and a Suicide

The years 1930 and 1931 had been good
for Hitler politically. The Nazis were now the second largest party in Germany.
Hitler had become a best-selling author, with Mein Kampf selling over 50,000
copies, bringing him a nice income. The Nazi party also had fancy new headquarters
in Munich, the Brown House.

Money was flowing in from German industrialists
who saw the Nazis as the wave of the future. They invested in Hitler in
the hope of getting favors when he came to power. Their money was used to
help pay the growing numbers of salaried Nazis and fuel Goebbel's propaganda
machine.

The German General Staff was also investing
support in Hitler, hoping he meant what he said about tearing up the Treaty
of Versailles which limited their Army to 100,000 men and also prevented
modernization. The Generals had been encouraged by Hitler's performance
as a witness during the trial of three young regular Army officers charged
with spreading Nazi doctrines in the German Army.

Hitler used his appearance in the courtroom
to send a message to the General Staff that there would be no attempt to
replace the regular Army with an army of storm troopers and that once in
power, the Nazis would raise the German Army to new heights of greatness.
This was exactly what the generals wanted to hear.

It was however, the SA, his own
storm troopers, that gave Hitler problems. Many of the violence prone, socialist
leaning SA members wanted to become a new German revolutionary army. They
also embarrassed Hitler by wreaking havoc in the streets despite his order
to lay low. Hitler had to use his personal bodyguard, the SS, under its
chief, Heinrich Himmler, to put down a small SA revolt in Berlin led by
Captain Walter Stennes.

Hitler installed former SA leader, Ernst
Röhm, as the new leader to reorganize and settle down the SA,now
numbering over 60,000 members. The SA, however, and its leadership would
remain a problem for years for Hitler, culminating in a major crisis a few
years down the road.

It was in his personal life, however,
that Adolf Hitler was about to face a crisis that would shake him to the
core.

Back in the summer of 1928, Hitler had
rented a small country house at Berchtesgaden which had a magnificent view
of the Bavarian mountains and years later would be the site of his sprawling
villa.

For Hitler, then aged 39, it was the
first place he could truly call home. He settled into the little country
house and invited his step sister, Angela, to leave Vienna and come to take
over the daily household chores. Angela arrived along with her two daughters,
Friedl and Geli.

Geli was a lively twenty year old with
dark blond hair and Viennese charm, qualities that were hugely appealing
to a man nearly twice her age. Hitler fell deeply in love with her. He fawned
over her like a teenager in love for the first time. He went shopping with
her and patiently stood by as she tried on clothes. He took her to theaters,
cafés, concerts and even to party meetings.

This relationship between Hitler and
his niece was for the most part socially acceptable according to local customs
since she was the daughter of his half sister.

Young Geli enjoyed the attention of
this man who was becoming famous. Strangers would come over and ask Hitler
for a souvenir or an autograph while they were sitting in a café.
There were also the trappings of power, SS body guards, a chauffeur, and
obedient aides.

But young Geli had a tendency to flirt.
Although she liked the attention of this older man, she yearned for the
company of young people. She had a number of romances, including one with
Hitler's chauffeur, who got fired as a result.

Though Hitler cast a jealous and disapproving
eye on Geli's romances, he was flirting himself with a fair haired seventeen
year old named Eva Braun, who worked in the photography shop run by his
personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann.

Hitler's jealousy and possessiveness
of his niece made her life increasingly claustrophobic, especially after
she moved in with him to a fancy nine room apartment in Munich. Everywhere
she went, she had two Nazi chaperons and had to be back home precisely at
the time her uncle ordered. She couldn't do anything without his permission.
And each time she tried to get free of her uncle's constraints, he tightened
his grip.

Hitler's stormy relationship with Geli
worsened. There were many loud arguments.

In September of 1931, Hitler ordered
her to stay at his apartment and not go to Vienna while he was away. This
made her furious. A huge argument followed. She desperately wanted to go.
Hitler said no.

As Hitler headed outside to his car
to leave for an SA meeting, Geli went to the window and yelled down to him
asking one more time if she could go. Hitler yelled back a stern "No!"

He departed with an uneasy feeling about
the whole situation.

The next morning, on the way to Hamburg,
Hitler's car was flagged down by a taxi. Rudolph Hess was on the line back
at the hotel Hitler had just left and wanted to speak to him immediately.

When Hitler picked up the phone there,
he was told his niece had shot herself. In a frenzy, Hitler rushed back
to Munich. But by the time he got back to his apartment, Geli's body had
been already removed. She had shot herself through the heart with a pistol.

The love of his life was gone, and under
horrible circumstances. To make matters worse, there were rumors in the
press she might have been murdered, perhaps even on Hitler's orders. Hitler
became deeply depressed and spent days pacing back and forth without stopping
to eat or sleep.

Herman Göring would later say Adolf
Hitler was never the same after the suicide of his beloved niece. Hitler
later said Geli was the only woman he ever loved. He always kept portraits
of her hung on the wall, decorated with flowers on the anniversaries of
her birth and death. Whenever he spoke of her, it was often with teary eyed
reverence.

Curiously, shortly after her death,
Hitler looked with disdain on a piece of ham being served during breakfast
and refused to eat it, saying it was like eating a corpse. From that moment
on, he refused to eat meat.

Hitler Runs for President

Just three weeks after the suicide of
his beloved niece, Adolf Hitler met the eighty four year old President of
Germany, Paul von Hindenburg for the first time.

Hitler pulled himself out of the severe
depression he fell into after her death. Twice before he had sunk into the
abyss of despair, only to emerge stronger - in 1918, lying in a hospital,
blinded by poison gas, after hearing news of the Germany's defeat ending
World War One - and in 1924, in prison after the failed Beer Hall Putsch.

In October 1931, the former Austrian
Corporal was presented to the former Field Marshal. Hitler was a bit unnerved
by the old gentleman and rambled on at length trying to impress him. Hindenburg
was not impressed and later said Hitler might be suited for Postmaster,
but never for a high position such as the Chancellorship of Germany.

October of 1931 marked the beginning
of the political intrigue that would destroy the young republic and ultimately
make Hitler Führer of Germany.

Constant political squabbling among
the numerous political parties in the Reichstag resulted in ineffective
government.

Adding to the problem, there were now
over a hundred elected Nazis in the Reichstag. Under the leadership of Hermann
Göring, they regularly disrupted proceedings with vulgar, rowdy behavior
to help undermine democracy in Germany.

The German people were desperate for
relief from the tremendous personal suffering brought on by the Great Depression,
now two years old. Millions were unemployed, thousands of small businesses
had failed, homelessness and starvation were real possibilities for everyone.

Civilization itself was unraveling in
Berlin where people were fighting in the streets killing each other in the
chaos.

But from their elected leaders, the
people got nothing but indecision. In ever growing numbers they turned to
the decisive man, Adolf Hitler, and his promises for a better future.

The republic now faced another problem.
In 1932, there was supposed to be a presidential election, according to
law. But Hindenburg, the glue holding the floundering democracy together,
was getting too old and said he was not interested in running again.

Even if he could be convinced to run,
he would be 92 by the time the seven year term ended, with Hitler looming
in the background the whole time. If he didn't live the entire term, considered
likely since he was failing, then Hitler would have his chance even sooner.

Early in 1932, Adolf Hitler received
a telegram from Chancellor Bruening inviting him to come to Berlin to discuss
the possibility of extending Hindenburg's present term. Hitler was delighted
at the invitation.

"Now I have them in my pocket! They
have recognized me as a partner in their negotiations!"-
Adolf Hitler stated to Rudolph Hess.

He went to the meeting and listened
to the proposal, but gave no response. There was no reason to help the chancellor
and thus help keep the republic alive.

In February 1932, President Hindenburg
reluctantly agreed to run again and announced his candidacy for re-election.

Adolf Hitler decided to oppose him and
run for the presidency of Germany.

"Freedom and Bread," was
the slogan used by Hitler with great effect during the Nazi campaign against
tired old President Hindenburg.

Joseph Goebbels waged a furious propaganda
campaign on behalf of Hitler, outdoing the previous election effort of 1930.
Nazi posters were plastered everywhere. There was a whirlwind schedule of
speeches for himself and Hitler. The Nazis held thousands of rallies each
day all across Germany. They gave out millions of pamphlets and extra copies
of Nazi newspapers. Goebbels also used new technology, making phonograph
records and films of Hitler to distribute.

President Hindenburg essentially did
nothing. He was content to ride on his reputation and counted on the votes
of Germans who wanted to keep the radicals out of power. Goebbels had high
hopes that Hitler might pull an upset and sweep into office. Hitler, however,
had his doubts. He campaigned knowing he was unlikely to unseat the old
gentleman. But the campaign was also an opportunity to win support for himself
and his party and extend Nazi influence.

Many in Germany saw the Nazis as the
wave of the future. After the stunning success of the 1930 election, thousands
of new members had poured into the party. Now, in the spring of 1932, with
six million unemployed, chaos in Berlin, starvation and ruin, the threat
of Marxism, and a very uncertain future - they turned to Hitler by the millions.

In the presidential election held on
March 13, 1932, Hitler got over eleven million votes (11,339,446)
or 30% of the total. Hindenburg got 18,651,497 votes or 49%.

Hindenburg failed to get the absolute
majority he needed, making a run-off election necessary. Goebbels and many
of the Nazi leaders were quite disappointed.

But Hitler immediately urged them to
start a vigorous campaign for the run-off to be held on April 10, less than
a month away.

In the campaign that followed, Hitler
crisscrossed Germany in an airplane, descending from the clouds into the
arms of growing numbers of fanatics, at ever larger rallies. He gave them
a positive message, promising something for everyone, then ascended back
into the clouds. "In the Third Reich every
German girl will find a husband!" - Hitler
once promised.

But like any politician, Hitler was
subject to scandal. A newspaper run by one of the opposition parties, the
Social Democrats, somehow got hold of letters between SA Chief Ernst Röhm
and a male doctor, concerning their mutual interest in men. Adolf Hitler
knew Röhm was a homosexual and had ignored it for years because of
Röhm's usefulness to him.

The issue as far as Hitler was concerned
was whether he had abused any underage males. Nazi lawyer Hans Frank investigated
this and assured Hitler he had found no evidence. Hitler was a little more
at ease. Thus, Ernst Röhm, the battle scarred, aggressive storm trooper
leader would stay, at least for now, as leader of the SA, now numbering
over 400,000.

The campaign for president continued
with the Nazis mounting another furious campaign effort with Hitler making
several campaign stops a day. President Hindenburg did less than before
and didn't make a single speech, causing rumors about ill health.

On a dark, rainy Sunday, April 10, 1932,
the people voted. They gave Hitler 13,418,547 or 36%, an increase of two
million, and Hindenburg 19,359,983 or 53%, an increase of under a million.

The eighty five year old gentleman was
elected by an absolute majority to another seven year term. But no one was
at ease. Hitler and the Nazis had shown massive popularity.

Berlin was now a swirling mess of fear,
intrigue, rumors, and disorder. Out of that mess arose a man named Kurt
von Schleicher, a highly ambitious Army officer, driven by the idea that
he, not Hitler, might possibly rule Germany.

The German republic was now as unsteady
as the teetering old gentleman leading it and up against Schleicher and
Hitler, was soon to be buried.

The Republic Collapses

Amid the swirling mess in Berlin of
political intrigue, rumors, and disorder, the SA, the Nazi storm troopers,
stood out as an ominous presence. In the spring of 1932, many in the German
democratic government came to believe the Brownshirts were about to take
over by force.

There were now over 400,000 storm troopers
under the leadership of SA Chief Ernst Röhm. Many members of the SA
considered themselves to be a true revolutionary army and were anxious to
live up to that idea. Adolf Hitler had to reign them from time to time so
they wouldn't upset his own carefully laid plans to undermine the republic.

Hitler knew he could not succeed as
Führer of Germany without the support of existing institutions such
as the German Army and the powerful German industrialists, both of whom
kept a wary eye on the revolutionary SA.

In April of 1932, Heinrich Bruening,
Chancellor of Germany, invoked Article 48 of the constitution and issued
a decree banning the SA and SS all across Germany. The Nazis were outraged
and wanted Hitler to fight the ban. But Hitler, always a step ahead of them
all, knew better. He agreed, knowing the republic was on its last legs and
that opportunity would soon come along for him.

That opportunity came in the form of
Kurt von Schleicher, a scheming, ambitious Army officer who had ideas of
leading Germany himself. But he made the mistake
(that would prove fatal)
of underestimating Hitler. Schleicher was acquainted with Hitler and had
been the one who arraigned for Hitler to meet Hindenburg, a meeting that
went poorly for Hitler.

On May 8, 1932, Schleicher held a secret
meeting with Hitler and offered a proposal. The ban on the SA and SS would
be lifted, the Reichstag dissolved and new elections called, and Chancellor
Bruening would be dumped, if Hitler would support him in a conservative
nationalist government. Hitler agreed.

Schleicher's skillful treachery behind
the scenes in Berlin first resulted in the humiliation and ousting of Gen.
Wilhelm Groener, a longtime trusted aid to President Hindenburg and friend
of the republic. In the Reichstag, Groener, who supported the ban on the
SA, took a severe public tongue lashing from Hermann Göring and was
hooted and booed by Goebbels and the rest of the Nazis.

"We covered him with such catcalls
that the whole house began to tremble and shake with laughter. In the end
one could only have pity for him. That man is finished."-
Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary, 1932.

Groener was pressured by Schleicher
to resign. He appealed without success to Hindenburg and wound up resigning
on May 13. Schleicher's next target was Chancellor Bruening.

Heinrich Bruening was one of the last
men in Germany who stood up to Hitler with the best interest of the people
at heart. He was responsible for getting Hindenburg re-elected as president
to keep out Hitler and preserve the republic. He was also hard at work on
the international scene to help the German economy by seeking an end to
war reparations. But his economic policies at home brought dismal results.
As Germany's economic situation got worse, with nearly six million unemployed,
Bruening was labeled"The Hunger
Chancellor."

Bruening had also continued the dangerous
precedent of ruling by decree. He invoked Article 48 of the German constitution
several times to break the political stalemate in Berlin.

To Schleicher and Hitler, he was simply
in the way and had to go. Schleicher went to work on him by undermining
the support of Hindenburg. Bruening was already in trouble with Hindenburg,
who blamed him for the political turmoil that had made it necessary to run
for re-election at age 85 against the 'Bohemian Corporal' Adolf Hitler.

Bruening also made an error in proposing
that the huge estates of bankrupt aristocrats be divided up and given to
peasants, sounding like a Marxist. Those same aristocrats, along with big
industrialists, had scraped together the money to buy Hindenburg an estate
of his own. When Hindenburg took his Easter vacation there in mid May, he
had to listen to their complaints about Bruening. All the while, Schleicher
was at work against him as well.

On May 29, 1932, Hindenburg called in
Bruening and told him to resign. The next day, Heinrich Bruening handed
in his resignation, effectively ending democracy in Germany.

Schleicher was now in control. He chose
as his puppet chancellor, an unknown socialite named Franz von Papen, who
had grave doubts about his own ability to function in such a high office.
Hindenburg, however, took a liking to Papen and encouraged him to take the
job.

The aristocratic Papen assembled a cabinet
of men like himself. This ineffective cabinet of aristocrats and industrialists
presided over a nation that would soon be on the verge of anarchy.

When Adolf Hitler was asked by President
Hindenburg if he would support Papen as chancellor, he said yes. On June
4, the Reichstag was dissolved and new elections were called for the end
of July. On June 15, the ban on the SA and SS was lifted. The secret promises
made to the Nazis by Schleicher had been fulfilled.

Murder and violence soon erupted on
a scale never before seen in Germany. Roaming groups of Nazi Brownshirts
walked the streets singing Nazi songs and looking for fights.

"Blood must flow, blood must flow! Blood
must flow as cudgel thick as hail! Let's smash it up, let's smash it up!
That goddamned Jewish republic!"

The Nazis found many Communists in the
streets wanting a fight and they began regularly shooting at each other.
Hundreds of gun battles took place. On July 17, the Nazis under police escort
brazenly marched into a Communist area near Hamburg in the state of Prussia.
A big shoot out occurred in which 19 people were killed and nearly 300 wounded.
It came to be known as "Bloody Sunday."

Papen invoked Article 48 and proclaimed
martial law in Berlin and also took over the government of the German state
of Prussia by naming himself Reich Commissioner. Germany had taken a big
step closer to authoritarian rule.

Hitler now decided that Papen was simply
in the way and had to go.

"I regard your cabinet only as a
temporary solution and will continue my efforts to make my party the strongest
in the country. The chancellorship will then devolve on me."- Adolf Hitler told Franz von Papen.

The July elections would provide that
opportunity. The Nazis, sensing total victory, campaigned with fanatical
energy. Hitler was now speaking to adoring German audiences of up to 100,000
at a time. The phenomenon of large scale 'Führer worship' had begun.
On July 31, the people voted and gave the Nazis 13,745,000 votes, 37% of
the total, granting them 230 seats in the Reichstag. The Nazi party was
now the largest and most powerful in Germany.

On August 5, Hitler presented his list
of demands to Schleicher - the chancellorship, passage of an enabling act
giving him control to rule by decree, three cabinet posts for Nazis, the
creation of a propaganda ministry, control over the Ministry of the Interior,
and control of Prussia. As for Schleicher, he would get the Ministry of
Defense as a reward.

Schleicher listened, didn't say yes
or no, but would let him know later.

With gleeful anticipation, Hitler awaited
Schleicher's response and even ordered that a memorial tablet be made to
mark the place where the historic meeting with Schleicher had occurred.

Meanwhile, the SA began massing in Berlin
anticipating a takeover of power. But old President Hindenburg put an end
to Hitler's dreams. Hindenburg by now distrusted Hitler and would not have
him as chancellor, especially after the behavior of the SA.

On August 13, Schleicher and Papen met
with Hitler and gave him the news. The best they could offer was a compromise
- vice chancellorship and the Prussian Ministry of the Interior.

Hitler became hysterical. In a display
of wild rage that stunned Schleicher and Papen, he spewed out threats of
violence and murder, saying he would let loose the SA for three days of
mayhem all across Germany.

Later that same day, Hitler was called
on the carpet by President Hindenburg. The former Austrian Corporal got
a tongue lashing from the former Field Marshal after again demanding the
chancellorship and refusing to cooperate with Papen and Schleicher.

But in the presence of the steely eyed
old Prussian, Hitler backed down. The gamble for total victory had failed.
He put the SA on a two week furlough and went to Berchtesgaden to lick his
wounds. They would all have to wait, he told them. Just a little longer.

On September 12, the Reichstag under
the new chairmanship of Hermann Göring gave a vote of no confidence
to Papen and his government. But just before that vote was taken, Papen
had slapped an order on Göring's desk dissolving the Reichstag and
calling yet again for new elections.

This was a problem. Everyone was getting
tired of elections by now. Goebbels had a hard time getting the Nazi effort
up to the same level of a few months earlier.

In the middle of the campaign, Hitler's
girlfriend Eva Braun shot herself in the neck during a suicide attempt.
Hitler was still haunted by the suicide of his beloved niece a few years
earlier. Eva Braun was deeply in love with Hitler but didn't get the attention
she craved. Hitler rushed to the hospital and resolved to look after her
from that moment on.

This distraction served to slow down
the already sluggish Nazi campaign. More problems came after Goebbels and
a number of Nazis went along with the Communists in a wildcat strike of
transport workers in Berlin, thus alienating a lot of middle class voters.

Bad publicity from siding with the Reds
plus the bad publicity Hitler got after his meeting with Hindenburg combined
to lose them votes. Adding to all this were the wild antics of the SA. On
November 6, the Nazis lost two million votes and thirty four seats in the
Reichstag. It seemed the Nazis were losing momentum. Hitler became depressed.

But there was still no workable government
in Berlin. Papen's position as chancellor was badly weakened. And Schleicher
was now at work behind the scenes to further undermine him. On November
17, Papen went to Hindenburg and told him he was unable to form any kind
of working coalition, then resigned.

Two days later, Hitler requested a meeting
with Hindenburg. Once again Hitler demanded to be made chancellor. Once
again he was turned down. This time however, Hindenburg took a friendlier
tone, asking Hitler, soldier to soldier, to meet him half way and cooperate
with the other parties to form a working majority, in other words, a coalition
government. Hitler said no.

On November 21, Hitler saw Hindenburg
again and tried a different approach. He read a prepared statement claiming
that parliamentary government had failed and that only the Nazis could be
counted on to stop the spread of Communism. He asked Hindenburg to make
him the leader of a presidential cabinet. Hindenburg said no, and only repeated
his own previous requests.

The Government of Germany had ground
to a halt.

Meanwhile, a group of the country's
most influential industrialists, bankers, and business leaders sent a petition
to Hindenburg asking him to appoint Hitler as chancellor. They believed
Hitler would be good for business.

Hindenburg was in a terrible bind. He
called in Papen and Schleicher and asked them what to do. Papen came up
with a wild idea. He would be chancellor again and rule only by decree,
eliminate the Reichstag altogether, use the Army and police to suppress
all political parties and forcibly amend the constitution. It would be a
return to the days of Empire, with the conservative, aristocratic classes
ruling.

Schleicher objected, much to Papen's
surprise. Schleicher said that he, not Papen, should head the government
and promised Hindenburg he could get a working majority in the Reichstag
by causing a rift among the Nazis. Schleicher said he could get Gregor Strasser
and as many as 60 Nazi deputies to break from Hitler.

Hindenburg was dumbfounded and finally
turned to Papen and asked him to go ahead and form his government. After
Hindenburg left the room, Papen and Schleicher got into a huge shouting
match.

At a cabinet meeting the next day, Schleicher
told Papen that any attempt by him to form a new government would bring
the country to chaos. He insisted that the Army would not go along and then
produced a Major Ott who backed up his claims. Schleicher had been at work
behind the scenes to sway the Army to his point of view. Papen was in big
trouble.

He went running to Hindenburg, who,
with tears rolling down his cheeks, told Papen there was no alternative
at this point except to name Schleicher as the new chancellor.

"My dear Papen, you will not think
much of me if I change my mind. But I am too old and have been through too
much to accept the responsibility for a civil war. Our only hope is to let
Schleicher try his luck." - President Hindenburg
told Franz von Papen.

Kurt von Schleicher became Chancellor
of Germany on December 2, 1932. There now began an incredible amount of
behind the scenes political intrigue and backstabbing that would put Hitler
in power in only 57 days.

To begin with, Schleicher made good
on his promise to try to split the Nazis. He held a secret meeting with
Gregor Strasser, a Nazi who had been with Hitler from the start, and offered
him the vice-chancellorship and control of Prussia.

To Strasser the offer was quite appealing.
The Nazi party's recent decline, losing millions of votes and now experiencing
terrible financial problems, seemed to indicate that Hitler's rigid tactics
might not be the best thing for long term success. Strasser had also acquired
a distaste for the brutal men who now made up Hitler's inner circle.

Through Papen, Hitler found out what
was going on. On December 5, Strasser and his infuriated Führer met
along with other Nazi leaders in a Berlin hotel. Strasser insisted that
Hitler and the Nazis cooperate or at least tolerate the Schleicher government.
Göring and Goebbels opposed him. Hitler sided with them against Strasser.

Two days later Strasser and Hitler met
again and wound up getting into a huge shouting match. Strasser accused
Hitler of leading the party to ruin. Hitler accused Strasser of stabbing
him in the back.

The following day, Strasser wrote a
letter to Hitler, resigning all of his duties as a member of the Nazi party.
Hitler and the Nazi leaders were stunned. One of the founding members and
most influential leaders had abandoned them. The Nazi party seemed to be
unraveling. Hitler became depressed, even threatening to shoot himself with
a pistol.

Strasser headed for a vacation in Italy.

"Whatever happens, mark what I say.
From now on Germany is in the hands of an Austrian, who is a congenital
liar (Hitler),
a former officer who is a pervert (Röhm),
and a clubfoot (Goebbels).
And I tell you the last is the worst of them all. This is Satan in human
form." - Gregor Strasser, 1932.

As for Hermann Göring...

"Göring is a brutal egotist
who cares nothing for Germany as long as he becomes something."
- Strasser stated.

"Strasser is a dead man."
- Goebbels wrote in his diary.

Hitler assigned his trusted aid, Rudolph
Hess, to take over Strasser's duties. Over the Christmas season, Hitler
became quite depressed over the failing fortunes of his party.

And it seemed to many political observers
that the danger of a Hitler dictatorship had passed.

But the new year brought new intrigue.
The big bankers and industrialists who had petitioned Hindenburg on behalf
of Hitler still liked the idea of Hitler in power. And Papen was now out
to bring down Schleicher. On January 4, 1933, Hitler went to a meeting with
Papen at the house of banker Kurt von Schroeder. Papen surprised Hitler
by offering to oust Schleicher and install a Papen-Hitler government with
himself and Hitler, both equal partners.

Hitler liked the idea of ousting Schleicher
but insisted that he would have to be the real head of government. He would
however be willing to work with Papen and his ministers. Papen gave in and
agreed.

When Schleicher found out, he went running
to Hindenburg, charging Papen with treachery. But Hindenburg had a soft
spot for Papen and would not go along.

Schleicher's position was already badly
weakened. He was unable to get the government moving because nobody trusted
him enough to join him in a working coalition. The German government remained
at a standstill with the people and Hindenburg getting more impatient by
the day. Something had to be done. Hindenburg authorized Papen to continue
negotiating with Hitler, but to keep it secret from Schleicher.

In the small German state of Lippe,
local elections were scheduled for January 15. Hitler and the Nazis took
this opportunity to make a big impression. They saturated the place with
propaganda and campaigned, hoping to win big and prove they had regained
momentum.

They received a small increase in votes
over their previous election total. But they used their own widely circulated
Nazi newspapers to exaggerate the significance and to once again lay claim
that Hitler and the Nazis were the wave of the future. It worked well and
even impressed President Hindenburg.

On Sunday, January 22, 1933 a secret
meeting was held at the home of Joachim von Ribbentrop. It was attended
by Papen, Hindenburg's son Oskar, along with Hitler and Göring. Hitler
grabbed Oskar and brought him into a private room and worked on him for
an hour to convince him that the Nazis had to be taken into the government
on his terms. Oskar emerged from the meeting convinced it was inevitable.
The Nazis were to be taken in. Papen then pledged his loyalty to Hitler.

Next, Schleicher went to Hindenburg
with a proposal - declare a state of emergency to control the Nazis, dissolve
the Reichstag, and suspend elections. Hindenburg said no.

But word of this proposal leaked out,
bringing Schleicher the wrath of the liberal and centrist parties. Schleicher
then backed down, bringing him the wrath of anti-Nazi conservatives. His
position was hopeless.

On January 28, he went to Hindenburg
and asked him once again to dissolve the Reichstag. Hindenburg said no.
Schleicher resigned.

Papen and the president's son, Oskar,
moved in on the old gentleman to convince him to appoint a Hitler-Papen
government. Hindenburg was now a tired old man weary of all the intrigue.
He seemed ready to give in. Hitler sensed his weakness and issued an additional
demand that four important cabinet posts be given to Nazis.

This did not set well with the old man
and he started having doubts about Hitler as chancellor. He was reassured
when Hitler promised that Papen would get one of those four posts.

On the 29th, a false rumor circulated
that Schleicher was about to arrest Hindenburg and stage a military takeover
of the government. When Hindenburg heard of this, it ended his hesitation.
He decided to appoint Adolf Hitler as the next Chancellor of Germany.

However, a last minute objection by
conservative leader, Alfred Hugenberg, nearly ruined everything. On January
30, while President Hindenburg waited in the other room to give Hitler the
chancellorship, Hugenberg held up everything by arguing with the Nazis over
Hitler's demand for new elections. He was persuaded by Hitler to back down,
or at least let Hindenburg decide. With that settled they all headed into
the president's office.

Around noon on January 30, 1933, a new
chapter in German history began as a teary eyed Adolf Hitler emerged from
the presidential palace as Chancellor of the German Nation. Surrounded by
admirers, he got in his car and was driven down the street lined with cheering
citizens.

"We've done it! We've done it!"
- a jubilant Adolf Hitler exclaimed.

Hitler Named Chancellor

When Adolf Hitler walked into the presidential
office of Paul von Hindenburg to become chancellor, the old gentleman was
so annoyed he would hardly look at him.

He had been kept waiting while Hitler
and conservative leader Alfred Hugenberg argued over Hitler's demand for
new elections. It was the final argument in what had been a huge tangled
web of political infighting and backstabbing that finally resulted in Adolf
Hitler becoming Chancellor of Germany.

Germany was a nation that in its history
had little experience or interest in democracy. In January 1933, Adolf Hitler
took the reins of a 14 year old German democratic republic which in the
minds of many had long outlived its usefulness. By this time, the economic
pressures of the Great Depression combined with the indecisive, self serving
nature of its elected politicians had brought government in Germany to a
complete standstill. The people were without jobs, without food, quite afraid
and desperate for relief.

Now, the man who had spent his entire
political career denouncing and attempting to destroy the republic, was
its leader. Around noon on January 30, Hitler was sworn in.

"I will employ my strength for the
welfare of the German people, protect the Constitution and laws of the German
people, conscientiously discharge the duties imposed on me, and conduct
my affairs of office impartially and with justice to everyone."- the
oath taken by Adolf Hitler.

But by this time, that oath had been
repeatedly broken by previous chancellors out of desperation and also out
of personal ambition. Chancellors Schleicher and Papen had seriously suggested
to Hindenburg the idea of replacing the republic itself with military dictatorship
to solve the crisis of political stagnation. He had turned them both down.

When a teary eyed Adolf Hitler emerged
from the presidential palace as the new chancellor, he was cheered by Nazis
and their supporters who believed in him, not the constitution or the republic.

"We've done it!"
Hitler shouted jubilantly to them.

He was to preside over a cabinet that
contained, including himself, only 3 Nazis out of 11 posts. Hermann Göring
was Minister without Portfolio and Minister of the Interior of Prussia.
Nazi, Wilhelm Frick, was Minister of the Interior. The small number of Nazis
in the cabinet was planned to help keep Hitler in check.

Franz von Papen was vice-chancellor.
Hindenburg had promised him that Hitler would only be received in the office
of the president if accompanied by Papen.

This was another way to keep Hitler
in check. In fact, Papen had every intention of using the conservative majority
in the cabinet along with his own political skills to run the government
himself.

"Within two months we will have pushed
Hitler so far in the corner that he'll squeak,"Papen
boasted to a political colleague.

Papen and many non-Nazis thought having
Hitler as chancellor was to their advantage. Conservative members of the
former aristocratic ruling class desired an end to the republic and a return
to an authoritarian government that would restore Germany to glory and bring
back their old privileges. They wanted to go back to the days of the Kaiser.
For them, putting Hitler in power was just the first step toward achieving
that goal. They knew it was likely he would wreck the republic. Then once
the republic was abolished, they could put in someone of their own choosing,
perhaps even a descendant of the Kaiser.

Big bankers and industrialists, including
Krupp and I. G. Farben, had lobbied Hindenburg and schemed behind the scenes
on behalf of Hitler because they were convinced he would be good for business.
He promised to be for free enterprise and keep down Communism and the trade
union movements.

The military also placed its bet on
Hitler, believing his repeated promises to tear up the Treaty of Versailles
and expand the Army and bring back its former glory.

They all had one thing in common - they
underestimated Hitler.

On the evening of January 30, just about
every member of the SA and SS turned out in uniform to celebrate the new
Führer-Chancellor, Adolf Hitler. Carrying torches and singing the Hörst
Wessel song, they were cheered by thousands as they marched through the
Brandenburg gate and along the Wilhelmstrasse to the presidential palace.
Cops on the beat who used to give them trouble now wore swastika armbands
and smiled at them. Everywhere was heard the rhythmic pounding beats of
jackboots, drums and blaring military parade music.

They saluted Hindenburg as he looked
out from a window of the presidential palace. Then they waited at the chancellery
for Hitler in a scene carefully staged by Joseph Goebbels. A sea of hand
held burning torches cast flickering light on red and gold Nazi banners
amid the slow beating of drums in anticipation of seeing the Führer.
Men, women, children along with the SA and SS waited. He kept them waiting,
letting the tension rise. All over Germany, people listened to this on the
radio, waiting, and hearing the throngs calling for their Führer.

When he appeared in the beam of a spotlight,
Hitler was greeted with an outpouring of worshipful adulation unlike anything
ever seen before in Germany. Bismark, Frederick the Great, the Kaiser, had
not seen this.

"Heil! Seig Heil!," went the
chorus of those who believed the hour of deliverance had come in the form
of this man now gazing down at them.

"It is almost like a dream - a fairytale.
The new Reich has been born. Fourteen years of work have been crowned with
victory. The German revolution has begun!" -
Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary, January 30, 1933.

An old comrade of Hitler's sent a telegram
to President Hindenburg regarding his new chancellor. Former General Erich
Ludendorff had once supported Hitler and had even participated in the failed
Beer Hall Putsch in 1923.

"By appointing Hitler Chancellor
of the Reich you have handed over our sacred German Fatherland to one of
the greatest demagogues of all time. I prophesy to you this evil man will
plunge our Reich into the abyss and will inflict immeasurable woe on our
nation. Future generations will curse you in your grave for this action."- the telegram to Hindenburg from
Ludendorff stated.

Within weeks, Hitler would be absolute
dictator of Germany and would set in motion a chain of events resulting
in the second World War and the eventual deaths of nearly 50 million humans
through that war and through deliberate extermination.

To begin, Hitler would see the German
democratic republic go down in flames, literally. In February, 1933, the
Nazis hatched a plan to burn the Reichstag building and end democracy once
and for all.

The Reichstag Burns

Adolf Hitler, the new Chancellor of
Germany, had no intention of abiding by the rules of democracy. He intended
only to use those rules to legally establish himself as dictator as quickly
as possible then begin the Nazi revolution.

Even before he was sworn in, he was
at work to accomplish that goal by demanding new elections. While Hindenburg
waited impatiently in another room, Hitler argued with conservative leader
Hugenberg, who vehemently opposed the idea. Hitler's plan was to establish
a majority of elected Nazis in the Reichstag which would become a rubber
stamp, passing whatever laws he desired while making it all perfectly legal.

On his first day as chancellor, Hitler
manipulated Hindenburg into dissolving the Reichstag and calling for the
new elections he had wanted - to be held on March 5, 1933.

That evening, Hitler attended a dinner
with the German General Staff and told them Germany would re-arm as a first
step toward regaining its former position in the world. He also gave them
a strong hint of things to come by telling them there would be conquest
of the lands to the east and ruthless Germanization of conquered territories.

Hitler also reassured the generals there
would be no attempt to replace the regular army with an army of SA storm
troopers. For years this had been a big concern of the generals who wanted
to preserve their own positions of power and keep the traditional military
intact.

Hitler's storm troopers were about to
reach new heights of power of their own and begin a reign of terror that
would last as long as the Reich.

President Hindenburg had fallen under
Hitler's spell and was signing just about anything put in front of him.
He signed an emergency decree that put the German state of Prussia into
the hands of Hitler confidant, Vice Chancellor Papen. Göring as Minister
of the Interior for Prussia took control of the police. Prussia was Germany's
biggest and most important state and included the capital of Berlin.

Göring immediately replaced hundreds
of police officials loyal to the republic with Nazi officials loyal to Hitler.
He also ordered the police not to interfere with the SA and SS under any
circumstances. This meant that anybody being harassed, beaten, or even murdered
by Nazis, had nobody to turn to for help.

Göring then ordered the police
to show no mercy to those deemed hostile to the state, meaning those hostile
to Hitler, especially Communists.

"Police officers who use weapons
in carrying out their duties will be covered by me. Whoever misguidedly
fails in this duty can expect disciplinary action."
- Order of Hermann Göring to Prussian Police, February 1933.

On February 22, Göring set up an
auxiliary police force of 50,000 men, composed mostly of members of the
SA and SS. The vulgar, brawling, murderous Nazi storm troopers now had the
power of police.

Two days later, they raided Communist
headquarters in Berlin. Göring falsely claimed he had uncovered plans
for a Communist uprising in the raid. But he actually uncovered the membership
list of the Communist party and intended to arrest every one of the four
thousand members.

Göring and Goebbels, with Hitler's
approval, then hatched a plan to cause panic by burning the Reichstag building
and blaming the Communists. The Reichstag was the building in Berlin where
the elected members of the republic met to conduct the daily business of
government.

By a weird coincidence, there was also
in Berlin a deranged Communist conducting a one man uprising. An arsonist
named Marinus van der Lubbe, 24, from Holland, had been wandering around
Berlin for a week attempting to burn government buildings to protest capitalism
and start a revolt. On February 27, he decided to burn the Reichstag building..

Carrying incendiary devices, he spent
all day lurking around the building, before breaking in around 9 p.m. He
took off his shirt, lit it on fire, then went to work using it as his torch.

The exact sequence of events will never
be known, but Nazi storm troopers under the direction of Göring were
also involved in torching the place. They had befriended the arsonist and
may have know or even encouraged him to burn the Reichstag that night. The
storm troopers, led by SA leader Karl Ernst, used the underground tunnel
that connected Göring's residence with the cellar in the Reichstag.
They entered the building, scattered gasoline and incendiaries, then hurried
back through the tunnel.

The deep red glow of the burning Reichstag
caught the eye of President Hindenburg and Vice-Chancellor Papen who were
dining at a club facing the building. Papen put the elderly Hindenburg in
his own car and took him to the scene.

Hitler was at Goebbels' apartment having
dinner. They rushed to the scene where they met Göring who was already
screaming false charges and making threats against the Communists.

At first glance, Hitler described the
fire as a beacon from heaven.

"You are now witnessing the beginning
of a great epoch in German history...This fire is the beginning,"Hitler told a news reporter at the scene.

After viewing the damage, an emergency
meeting of government leaders was held. When told of the arrest of the Communist
arsonist, Van der Lubbe, Hitler became deliberately enraged.

"The German people have been soft
too long. Every Communist official must be shot. All Communist deputies
must be hanged this very night. All friends of the Communists must be locked
up. And that goes for the Social Democrats and the Reichsbanner as well!"

Hitler left the fire scene and went
straight to the offices of his newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter,to oversee its coverage of the fire. He stayed up all night with Goebbels
putting together a paper full of tales of a Communist plot to violently
seize power in Berlin.

At a cabinet meeting held later in the
morning, February 28, Chancellor Hitler demanded an emergency decree to
overcome the crisis. He met little resistance from his largely non-Nazi
cabinet. That evening, Hitler and Papen went to Hindenburg and the befuddled
old man signed the decree "for the Protection
of the people and the State."

The Emergency Decree stated...

"Restrictions on personal liberty,
on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press;
on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy
of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications and warrants for house
searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property,
are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed."

Immediately, there followed the first
big Nazi round up as truckloads of SA and SS roared through the streets
bursting in on known Communist hangouts and barging into private homes.
Thousands of Communists as well as Social Democrats and liberals were taken
away into 'protective custody' to SA barracks where they were beaten and
tortured.

"I don't have to worry about justice;
my mission is only to destroy and exterminate, nothing more!"- Hermann Göring, March 3, 1933.

Fifty one anti-Nazis were murdered.
The Nazis suppressed all political activity, meetings and publications of
non-Nazi parties. The very act of campaigning against the Nazis was in effect
made illegal.

"Every bullet which leaves the barrel
of a police pistol now is my bullet. If one calls this murder, then I have
murdered. I ordered this. I back it up. I assume the responsibility, and
I am not afraid to do so."- Hermann Göring.

Nazi newspapers continued to print false
evidence of Communist conspiracies, claiming only Hitler and the Nazis could
prevent a Communist takeover. Joseph Goebbels now had control of the state-run
radio and broadcast Nazi propaganda and Hitler's speeches all across the
nation.

The Nazis now turned their attention
to election day, March 5.

All of the resources of the government
necessary for a big win were placed at the disposal of Joseph Goebbels.
The big industrialists who had helped Hitler into power gladly coughed up
three million marks. Representatives from Krupp munitions and I. G. Farben
were among those reaching into their pockets at Göring's insistence.

"The sacrifice we ask is easier to
bear if you realize that the elections will certainly be the last for the
next ten years, probably for the next hundred years,"Göring
told them.

With no money problems and the power
of the State behind them, the Nazis campaigned furiously to get Hitler the
majority he wanted.

On March 5, the last free elections
were held. The people denied Hitler his majority, giving the Nazis only
44 per cent of the total vote, 17, 277,180. Despite massive propaganda and
the brutal crackdown, the other parties held their own. The Center Party
got over four million and the Social Democrats over seven million. The Communists
lost votes but still got over four million.

The goal of a legally established dictatorship
was now within reach. But the lack of the necessary two thirds majority
in the Reichstag was an obstacle. For Hitler and his ruthless inner circle,
it was obstacle that was soon to be overcome.

As for Van der Lubbe, the Communist
arsonist, he was tried and convicted, then beheaded.

Hitler Becomes Dictator

After the elections of March 5, 1933,
the Nazis began a systematic takeover of the state governments throughout
Germany, ending a centuries old tradition of local political independence.
Armed SA and SS thugs barged into local government offices using the state
of emergency decree as a pretext to throw out legitimate office holders
and replace them with Nazi Reich commissioners.

Political enemies were arrested by the
thousands and put in hastily constructed holding pens. Old army barracks
and abandoned factories were used as prisons. Once inside, prisoners were
subjected to military style drills and harsh discipline. They were often
beaten and sometimes even tortured to death. This was the very beginning
of the Nazi concentration camp system.

At this time, these early concentration
camps were loosely organized under the control of the SA and the rival SS.
Many were little more than barbed wire stockades know as 'wild' concentration
camps, set up by local Gauleiters and SA leaders.

For Adolf Hitler, the goal of a legally
established dictatorship was now within reach. On March 15, 1933, a cabinet
meeting was held during which Hitler and Göring discussed how to obstruct
what was left of the democratic process to get an Enabling Act passed by
the Reichstag. This law would hand over the constitutional functions of
the Reichstag to Hitler, including the power to make laws, control the budget
and approve treaties with foreign governments..

The emergency decree signed by Hindenburg
on February 28, after the Reichstag fire, made it easy for them to interfere
with non-Nazi elected representatives of the people by simply arresting
them.

As Hitler plotted to bring democracy
to an end in Germany, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels put together a
brilliant public relations display at the official opening of the newly
elected Reichstag.

On March 21, in the Garrison Church
at Potsdam, the burial place of Frederick the Great, an elaborate ceremony
took place designed to ease public concern over Hitler and his gangster-like
new regime.

It was attended by President Hindenburg,
foreign diplomats, the General Staff and all the old guard going back to
the days of the Kaiser. Dressed in their handsome uniforms sprinkled with
medals, they watched a most reverent Adolf Hitler give a speech paying respect
to Hindenburg and celebrating the union of old Prussian military traditions
and the new Nazi Reich. As a symbol of this, the old Imperial flags would
soon add swastikas.

Finishing his speech, Hitler walked
over to Hindenburg and respectfully bowed before him while taking hold of
the old man's hand. The scene was recorded on film and by press photographers
from around the world. This was precisely the impression Hitler and Goebbels
wanted to give to the world, all the while plotting to toss aside Hindenburg
and the elected Reichstag.

Later that same day, Hindenburg signed
two decrees put before him by Hitler. The first offered full pardons to
all Nazis currently in prison. The prison doors sprung open and out came
an assortment of Nazi thugs and murderers.

The second decree signed by the befuddled
old man allowed for the arrest of anyone suspected of maliciously criticizing
the government and the Nazi party.

A third decree signed only by Hitler
and Papen allowed for the establishment of special courts to try political
offenders. These courts were conducted in the military style of a court
martial without a jury and usually with no counsel for the defense.

On March 23, the newly elected Reichstag
met in the Kroll Opera House in Berlin to consider passing Hitler's Enabling
Act. It was officially called the "Law for
Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich."
If passed, it would in effect vote democracy out of existence in Germany
and establish the legal dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.

Brown-shirted Nazi storm troopers swarmed
over the fancy old building in a show of force and as a visible threat.
They stood outside, in the hallways and even lined the aisles inside, glaring
ominously at anyone who might oppose Hitler's will.

Before the vote, Hitler made a speech
in which he pledged to use restraint.

"The government will make use of
these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally
necessary measures...The number of cases
in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such a law
is in itself a limited one,"Hitler
told the Reichstag.

He also promised an end to unemployment
and pledged to promote peace with France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union.
But in order to do all this, Hitler said, he first needed the Enabling Act.
A two thirds majority was needed, since the law would actually alter the
constitution. Hitler needed 31 non-Nazi votes to pass it. He got those votes
from the Center Party after making a false promise to restore some basic
rights already taken away by decree.

But one man arose amid the overwhelming
might. Otto Wells, leader of the Social Democrats stood up and spoke quietly
to Hitler.

"We German Social Democrats pledge
ourselves solemnly in this historic hour to the principles of humanity and
justice, of freedom and socialism. No enabling act can give you power to
destroy ideas which are eternal and indestructible."

Hitler was enraged and jumped up to
respond.

"You are no longer needed! - The
star of Germany will rise and yours will sink! Your death knell has sounded!"

The vote was taken - 441 for, and only
84, the Social Democrats, against. The Nazis leapt to their feet clapping,
stamping and shouting, then broke into the Nazi anthem, the Hörst Wessel
song.

They had brought down the German Democratic
Republic legally. Democracy was ended. From this day on, the Reichstag would
be just a sounding board, a cheering section for Hitler's pronouncements.

Interestingly, the Nazi party was now
flooded with applications for membership. These latecomers were cynically
labeled by old time Nazis as 'March Violets.' In May the Nazi party froze
membership. Many of those kept out applied to the SA and the SS which were
still accepting. However, in early 1934, Heinrich Himmler would throw out
50,000 of those 'March Violets' from the SS.

The Nazi Gleichschaltung now began,
a massive coordination of all aspects of life under the swastika and the
absolute leadership of Adolf Hitler.

Under Hitler, the State, not the individual,
was supreme.

From the moment of birth one existed
to serve the State and obey the dictates of the Führer. Those who disagreed
were disposed of.

Many agreed. Bureaucrats, industrialists,
even intellectual and literary figures, including Gerhart Hauptmann, world
renowned dramatist, were coming out in open support of Hitler.

Many disagreed and left the country.
A flood of the finest minds, including over two thousand writers, scientists,
and people in the arts poured out of Germany and enriched other lands, mostly
the United States. Among them - writer Thomas Mann, director Fritz Lang,
actress Marlene Dietrich, architect Walter Gropius, musicians Otto Klemperer,
Kurt Weill, Richard Tauber, psychologist Sigmund Freud, and Albert Einstein,
who was visiting California when Hitler came to power and never returned
to Germany.

In Germany there were now constant Nazi
rallies, parades, marches and meetings amid
the relentless propaganda of Goebbels and the omnipresent swastika. For
those who remained there was an odd mixture of fear and optimism in the
air.

Now, for the first time as dictator,
Adolf Hitler turned his attention to the driving force which had propelled
him into politics in the first place, his hatred of the Jews.It
began with a simple boycott on April 1, 1933 and would end years later in
the greatest tragedy in all of human history.